OCEAN CITY – One of the casualties of an otherwise memorable late October Sunfest last weekend was the cancellation of Friday’s planned drone show over the ocean due to President Joe Biden’s visit to his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach.
Last year, Ocean City decided to replace many of the resort’s traditional weekly fireworks shows with increasingly popular drone shows synchronized to music. Hundreds of drones fill the sky over the ocean and complete elaborate and intricate designs and spell out messages to those below.
Last week, a drone show was scheduled to put an exclamation point on the Friday night of Sunfest, which was moved back this year to late October. However, because Biden and first lady Jill Biden were scheduled to visit their vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR), essentially grounding the town’s planned Sunfest drone show.
The Bidens came to Rehoboth on Friday after the president made a speech earlier in the day on student debt relief at Delaware State University. The Bidens were expected to arrive at their Rehoboth vacation home around 6 p.m. last Friday.
The FAA issues a TFR for an area of 30 miles in radius from where a president is located. A stricter “no fly zone” is established by the FAA in a 10-mile radius from the president’s location. TFRs restrict aircraft, including drones, from operating without permission in a limited amount of time. TFRs are communicated to pilots through Notices to Air Missions.
The TFR issued in the 30-mile radius from Biden’s vacation home in Rehoboth was in place from last Thursday through Sunday. The result was grounding the planned drone show in Ocean City at the close of Friday of Sunfest last weekend.
While the planned drone show over the ocean at the close of Sunfest on Friday was grounded, it wasn’t the only situation during which the TFR was evoked last weekend. On Saturday, a small private plane was flying over the resort area apparently unaware of the flight restrictions in place and was quickly escorted out of the area by an F-16 jet. In addition, a small private drone taking aerial pictures of the large crowd gathered at the Justice for Gavin fundraiser at the Sinepuxent Brewing Company in West Ocean City was also ordered to the ground, according to sources.
Ocean City Marketing and Communications Director Jessica Waters this week explained how and when resort officials learned the Sunfest drone show could not go off as planned.
“Notification was received Thursday afternoon that President Biden would be in Rehoboth, therefore enacting a TFR and grounding the drones,” she said. “In fact, on Saturday we witnessed a small plane overhead and seconds later, an F-16 scrambled to turn it back. This TFR places a 30-mile radius no-fly zone around his vacation home. Ocean City resides under that air space and drones are prohibited along with other aircraft.”
Ocean City Airport Manager Jaime Giandomenico said there have been a few occasions when TFRs have been evoked when Biden was visiting is Rehoboth vacation home. He said some airplane-related businesses such as banner planes, for example, are allowed to operate, but under strict rules and limitations. Some aerial businesses, however, such as the skydiving operation at the Ocean City airport have been forced to stay on the ground when the TFR is in place.
“When President Biden is in Rehoboth, a TFR places a lot of limitations on when and how aircraft can move through the local airspace,” he said. “If not done properly, aircraft are subject to intercept by fighter jets. This is what I assumed happened over the weekend.”
Giandomenico said the small private plane escorted out of the area last Saturday by the F-16 was not out of the Ocean City airport. For that reason, he did not know the particulars of that interaction, but surmised the small plane was escorted to Salisbury.
“I don’t have any detailed information on the circumstances,” he said. “Even though this errant aircraft was intercepted in the vicinity of Ocean City Airport, we have both of our runways closed for repaving. To the best of my knowledge, the subject airplane was escorted to Salisbury.”
As far as the cancellation of the Sunfest drone show on Friday, Giandomenico said the TFR rules are very clear.
“On the subject of the drone show, the TFR specifically prohibits the operation of unmanned aerial vehicles within the affected airspace,” he said. “In this case, a 30-mile radius centered on the VIP location.”
Last week’s drone show cancellation and the private plane’s escort out of the area the following day were not the first examples of the TFR being evoked in the area. In early June, Biden and his wife were briefly evacuated from their vacation home after a small plane mistakenly entered the restricted air space over Rehoboth Beach. The aircraft was immediately escorted out of the restricted air space and the Bidens returned to their vacation home a short time later. The private pilot reportedly was not using a proper radio channel and was unable to respond to commands before being escorted out of the airspace by the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
