{"id":949789,"date":"2026-11-02T11:24:17","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T11:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/949789\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T11:24:17","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T11:24:17","slug":"number-of-mysterious-drones-flying-over-defence-bases-rises-as-authorities-in-the-dark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/949789\/","title":{"rendered":"Number of mysterious drones flying over defence bases rises as authorities in the dark"},"content":{"rendered":"

Authorities are in the dark about who is behind the major jump in the number of unidentified drones flying over Australian Defence<\/a> Force bases in what has been described as a national security threat. <\/p>\n

Defence officials told a Senate committee the reports of unidentified drone sightings over bases have risen from 19 in 2022-23 to 204 in 2025-26.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Classic Hornets take of at Williamtown RAAF base for operation in 2014. Several unidentified drones breached the base\u2019s airspace earlier this year.\u00a0Ryan Osland<\/p>\n

These added to a total of about 420 sightings over the past four financial years. <\/p>\n

In the financial year to date, which started on July 1, there has already been 42 reports. <\/p>\n

Asked how many of the incidents were just \u201ca silly teenager\u201d and how many were foreign interference or espionage, the defence officials were unable to say. <\/p>\n

\u201cI can say we\u2019re working really closely on the motivations,\u201d the official said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t identified particular high-end concerns but we are very concerned that this is a growing challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Australian<\/a> Strategic Policy Institute defence expert Malcolm Davis said the rising number of unidentified drones was \u201cabsolutely\u201d a national security threat. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe risk is there\u2019s not so much some amateur flying a drone over a base creating an incident,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the possibility that you could have a foreign adversary or a terrorist organisation utilising drones to actually attack one of our bases.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Williamtown RAAF Base, home to fighter jets and aircraft about 30km north of Newcastle in NSW<\/a>, made headlines after unidentified drones were found to have breached the restricted airspace on two separate occasions in July and August. <\/p>\n

Defence personnel did not shoot the drones down and investigations are still ongoing to determine their origins. <\/p>\n

Defence officials flagged the current legal framework was \u201cnot straightforward\u201d about their powers in responding to these incidents.<\/p>\n

Davis said the incident showed how easy it could have been to damage aircraft and infrastructure and pointed to Ukraine\u2019s Operation Spiderweb.<\/p>\n

The covert military operation had caused damage to multimillion-dollar Russian military assets after cheap drones were unleashed in a surprise attack in July 2025. <\/p>\n

\u201cDrones are cheap. They can be armed with explosives. They can do real damage,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n

At the time of the Williamtown base incident, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said it was \u201cunsafe and dangerous\u201d to have drones around defence airspace. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

While small and relatively cheap, drones can cause significant damage and have become a defining feature of the war in Ukraine.\u00a0AP Photo\/Efrem Lukatsky<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes no sense for that to occur,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Legislation to grant defence members the ability to shoot down any unidentified drones was introduced in October. <\/p>\n

Shadow defence minister James Paterson said it should not have taken so many months of pressure for the federal government to finally act and bring forward those reforms. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Coalition has been raising the alarm on drone attacks on our major defence infrastructure for many months, particularly our RAAF bases,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Australia will spend a record $425 billion over the next decade to overhaul the defence force. <\/p>\n

About $22 billion has been spent on counter-drone technology and $7 billion on counter-drone investment over the decade. <\/p>\n

Davis called on the federal government to fast-track its investment into counter-drone defences.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the moment, I think that we\u2019re only just starting to wake up to this threat and the government is moving way too slowly to respond to this threat,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have 10 years to think about a capability solution and then buy it. We\u2019ve got to get this in place within 12 months.\u201d <\/p>\n

In a statement, an Australian government spokesperson said \u201cmodern threats demand modern laws\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cProtecting Defence personnel, critical infrastructure and sensitive capabilities has never been more important.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe legislation builds on the Albanese government\u2019s previous regulatory changes and provides Defence with enduring authority to respond to drone incursions.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefence must be able to protect its people, bases and capabilities against a range of rapidly evolving threats.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Authorities are in the dark about who is behind the major jump in the number of unidentified drones…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":949790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-949789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=949789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/949790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=949789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=949789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=949789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}