See incident reports on drone activity over Suffolk County from 2025
Officials at a news conference early last year on widespread drone sightings near Francis S. Gabreski Airport in Westhampton Beach. Credit: Tom Lambui
In January 2025, the Suffolk County Sheriff's Office increased monitoring of drone activity in restricted airspace around Francis S. Gabreski Airport in Westhampton Beach.
The Suffolk County Department of Fire, Rescue and Emergency Services provided the drone detection equipment to the sheriff's office following a surge of suspected drone activity around the county airport in late 2024.
Through a public records request, Newsday obtained incident reports for 2025. The reports show a combination of real estate photographers, recreational users and other operators responsible for most of the drones that sheriff deputies could pinpoint.
In some instances, the drone operators told sheriff deputies they were unaware of restrictions around the airport. In some cases, the operators had received proper clearance to fly. When the system detects a drone, it does not specify whether the operator had received clearance, officials said.
The Dedrone technology detected drones in the residential neighborhood of East Quogue to the east of the airport and throughout Westhampton and Westhampton Beach. Most of the alerts came during the afternoon.
The following database shows all the aviation incident reports involving drones in 2025:
Joe Werkmeister joined Newsday in 2022 and covers Suffolk County government and politics. He is a graduate of St. Bonaventure University and previously worked as the editor of two North Fork community newspapers.
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