Airport disruption
Auckland Airport suspends operations after pilot drone report
Auckland, New Zealand06 Mar 2018 · event dateapproximate location You are viewing revision 1 as published on 16 Oct 2026. The dossier text, evidence states, claims and sources of this revision are fixed; catalogue context such as cost estimates is not shown here. View the current version
Operations at Auckland Airport were suspended for at least half an hour on 6 March 2018 after an airline pilot reported a drone. An arriving Air New Zealand flight diverted for refuelling.
AttributionNot established
Claims and evidence
2 sources · 2 original statements
Sources that repeat the same original statement count once: a number of articles is not a number of independent confirmations.
| Claim | Original source | Assessment |
|---|
| Impact 1News reports at least a half-hour suspension. Source passage [1]“suspend all operations for a minimum of 30 minutes” Passage checked word for word against the source on 16 Oct 2026. | 1News / Air New Zealand via 1News | supports Short literal passage read on the public source page; reported drone presence is not technical identification. |
| Attribution The association relayed that police had no current leads on the operator. Source passage [2]“Police have reported that they do not have any current leads” Passage checked word for word against the source on 16 Oct 2026. | New Zealand police via NZALPA via NZALPA | context only Short literal passage read on the public source page; reported drone presence is not technical identification. |
| Drone The airline says a pilot reported a drone. Source passage [1]“one of our Q300 pilots spotted the drone” Passage checked word for word against the source on 16 Oct 2026. | Air New Zealand via 1News | supports Short literal passage read on the public source page; reported drone presence is not technical identification. |
Source genealogy
Grouped by recorded original statement, not by publisher. Unmapped sources have unknown dependency; linked statements may also share an earlier origin. This is not an independence score.
- 1News / Air New Zealand / Air New Zealand
- 1News: Air New Zealand statement and diversion [1] · Relayed statement
- New Zealand police via NZALPA
- NZALPA: same-day pilot-association statement [2] · Relayed statement
Show source graph
Left: publishers; right: recorded original statement. Converging lines show shared origin, not publication order. Dashed nodes have unknown dependency.
What we know
1News reports a suspension of at least 30 minutes and a flight diverted for refuelling. NZALPA separately describes wider disruption but its figure for affected aircraft is not treated as a verified count of off-airport diversions.
1News directly quotes the airline’s operational account; the pilots’ association issued its own same-day statement and relayed police information. Both ultimately concern the same reported pilot sighting, so they do not establish two independent technical detections.
What remains unknown
No collision, verified device model or operator is established. NZALPA places the report shortly before noon while 1News calls it morning; the event date is the same local day. The association’s wording about 20 aircraft differs in scope from 1News’s one documented diversion; no combined total asserted. This is distinct from later Auckland reports in March and April 2018. Diversion destinations do not change the event place.
Operator attribution: Not established. No operator or responsible organisation established by the reviewed sources.
How the story changed
Operations at Auckland Airport were suspended for at least half an hour on 6 March 2018 after an airline pilot reported a drone. An arriving Air New Zealand flight diverted for refuelling. [1]
Editorial changes
- Revision 1 · 16 Oct 2026Curated dossier created after checking the cited sources line by line.
Cite this dossier
Permanent page · Revision 1
Chicago
DroneLedger. “Auckland Airport suspends operations after pilot drone report.” Dossier auckland-airport-drone-report-2018-03-06, revision 1, updated 16 Oct 2026. https://droneincidents.com/incident/auckland-airport-drone-report-2018-03-06/v1/
APA
DroneLedger. (16 Oct 2026). Auckland Airport suspends operations after pilot drone report (Dossier auckland-airport-drone-report-2018-03-06, revision 1). https://droneincidents.com/incident/auckland-airport-drone-report-2018-03-06/v1/
Dataset DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23345422
Cite the revision you used: later revisions may change evidence states.
Curated dossier · sources checked line by line on 15 Oct 2026
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