I understand approaching this with an abundance of caution, but the drones were reportedly 17 miles away near a different airport, so this looks like quite an overreaction.
An EMS helicopter was lased a few months ago resulting in (I think temporary) injury to the crew and a delayed response to an EMS transport mission.
Hanlons razor says this was somebody trying to get that sweet picture or see how far they can push their toy.
And I put letting your toy fly into terminal area airspace in the same category. I don't care if it's intentional or accident. Control your shit, or go to prison.
Consider that drones may not show up on radar, restricted air space around airports can change at a moment's notice, they cannot be avoided through visual identification, airplanes need a long distance to drop/gain altitude when landing/taking off, airplanes need vertical buffer when sharing airspace with other airplanes, and that much aerial maneuvering and control happens at the speed of humans talking in technical jargon to other humans.
Even if no planned flight needs the airspace, the drone may be in buffer airspace that would be used for emergency complications.
The drone pilot was grossly irresponsible to fly where they did, and should be in jail.
The operator is either dangerously ignorant, or reckless.
- 107.41: over Tererboro airport and did not appear to have contacted ATC (air traffic control) and/or obtained waiver to operate in class B-E airspace
- 107.51: They flew above 400 feet
- 107.31: did not maintain VLOS with their drone (Visual Line of Sight)
- 107.43: interfered with operation of airport
- 107.39: possibly flew UAS over people
- 107.51: possibly within 500 feet vertically or 2000 feet horizontally from clouds
- 107.37: possibly (b) No person may operate a small unmanned aircraft so close to another aircraft as to create a collision hazard
Under CFR 14 part 107 you could request an waiver from FAA for a specific mission to fly above 400ft or outside VLOS or within different class airspace’s etc. 107.21 states also: In an in-flight emergency requiring immediate action, the remote pilot in command may deviate from any rule of this part to the extent necessary to meet that emergency. I suspect they had not.
Summary of FAApart 107: https://www.faa.gov/uas/media/Part_107_Summary.pdf
Note: in the us you can also fly under section 336 (model aircrafts) or under section 333 (pilot licensed remote pilots). But without checking the rules, I think differences would be minimal (e.g. ability obtain waivers, technicalities for ops near airports - e.g. 5 mile rule instead of airspace considerations).
"The drone was spotted about 3,500 feet over Teterboro Airport"
Drone flying at 3500 feet definitely seems like it could pose a risk to flights out of Liberty 17 miles away
http://vfrmap.com/?type=vfrc&lat=40.692&lon=-74.169&zoom=10
and an object near TEB at 3500' is inside the Class B airspace which requires positive control (not merely radar contact, not merely radio contact, but you must have a clearance or you cannot enter class B). TEB is also within 12 miles of EWR, and that's inside the departure/arrival path for EWR's main north south runways. Aircraft inside class B have a guarantee of positive separation by ATC. Everyone has to follow very specific rules in that airspace. And any aircraft that is not under positive control is a threat to all other aircraft.
Anyway, it is definitely not an overreaction. Also with the government shutdown, I expect there's next to no one available from FAA or NTSB to do a thorough investigation, most inspectors are not categorized as essential.