Summary
On Saturday, July 4, 2026, a netjets Bombardier Global 6500 (flight NJE426K, Portuguese registration CS-GLJ) departed westchester-county-airport (HPN) in White Plains, NY at 12:00 PM local, bound for Pereira, Colombia. About ten minutes after takeoff, while climbing through 15,800 ft near the New York-New Jersey border, the crew radioed air traffic control that a “large silver object” passed down the right side of the aircraft and “just missed” them. The crew described the object as too fast to identify precisely, but smaller than an aircraft and “definitely bigger than a drone” — distinguishing it from the drone near-miss reports at Newark and JFK earlier in the same window. The aircraft was undamaged and continued to Pereira, later flying on to Rio de Janeiro. Simple Flying frames the incident as part of a broader recent pattern of aviation near-misses with unidentified objects, citing src-newark-drone-near-miss-2026-06 and src-jfk-jetblue-drone-2026-06; as of publication, NetJets had not responded to a request for comment, and no faa investigation status was reported.
Key Claims
- NetJets crew reported a “large silver object” passed down the right side of Global 6500 CS-GLJ at 15,800 ft, ~10 min after HPN departure, and “just missed” the aircraft (per ATC report, relayed by Simple Flying).
- Crew indicated the object was too fast to identify, smaller than an aircraft, but “definitely bigger than a drone.”
- No apparent damage to the aircraft; flight continued to Pereira, Colombia (5 hr 11 min flight time) and then to Rio de Janeiro the next day.
- Simple Flying links the incident to a “growing trend” of near-misses, citing the June 26 United/Newark drone report and the June 29 JetBlue/JFK drone-strike report.
- NetJets had not responded to Simple Flying’s request for additional information as of publication.
Notable Quotes
“[The object] flew down the right side of the aircraft” and “just missed us.” — NetJets flight crew, NJE426K, to air traffic control “Definitely bigger than a drone.” — NetJets flight crew, describing the object’s size