A kite appears to have hit a passenger jet as it flew near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Saturday afternoon, United Airlines said.
The airline said it was aware of reports that a kite hit United Flight 654, and that the flight from Houston landed safely.
“Customers deplaned normally,” it said, “and upon inspection there was no damage to the aircraft.”
The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Police Department, which patrols Reagan National and Dulles International Airport, said a kite was “briefly confiscated” from someone in Gravelly Point because it was flying in restricted airspace.
“Kite-flying is prohibited at Gravelly Point due to low-flying aircraft landing at DCA,” the department said in a statement.
Jamie Larounis, a travel analyst, said he was at Gravelly Point on Saturday with a friend and a few hundred others to enjoy one of the first warm weekend days of spring when he saw the kite hit a plane and called airport police.
He said 10 or more kites were flying from the park space just north of Reagan National’s main runway, as planes descended for landing from the north.
For reasons unknown, Larounis said, “One kite got progressively higher and higher.”
He said he spotted the United flight approaching and saw it hit the kite between an engine and the fuselage.
The kite took a dive, he said, but reemerged in the air briefly before it was seen on the ground with a family, its string tangled and in a ball.
Airport police arrived with emergency lights and sirens activated, and officers began interviewing the family — two adults and a child — as they took possession of the kite, Larounis said.
“That kite was returned to its owner shortly later and no charges were filed,” said Emily McGee, spokesperson for the airport police department.
She said in the statement that officers warned some of the park-goers that kite flying is prohibited at Gravelly Point.
Gravelly Point, part of George Washington Memorial Parkway, is under the purview of the National Park Service. It’s across the Potomac River from the National Mall, where the Blossom Kite Festival, part of the National Cherry Blossom Festival celebrating spring, was taking place on Saturday, airport police said.
A spokesperson for the festival said it was not connected to activity at Gravelly Point.
United Flight 654 departed from its gate at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston at 11:59 a.m. and arrived at its Reagan National gate at 4:17 p.m., about 19 minutes behind schedule, according to flight tracker FlightAware.
Federal regulations prohibit kite flying near an airport, and ban flying them higher than 500 feet. If special permission is given, a notice to pilots must be issued, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. No such kite-flying notices were found in the agency’s database for Saturday in the area of Reagan National.
The incident took place in the wake of a handful of concerning aviation crashes and near-misses this year, including the collision of an American Airlines passenger jet and a U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter near Reagan National on Jan. 29, which killed all 67 people in the two aircraft.
Jay Blackman and Michelle Acevedo contributed.
