Flight Instructor with student reported a UAS hovering over the runway while they were on final approach. The UAS moved as they got closer but stayed within the vicinity of the airport.

ACN 2051517 2023-11 Small Aircraft General Aviation Flight Training Reports

Final ApproachPart 91

What is ASRS?

The Aviation Safety Reporting System is NASA's voluntary, confidential, non- punitive incident-reporting system, established 1976. Pilots, controllers, dispatchers, and maintenance technicians file reports describing safety- relevant events. NASA de-identifies every report before adding it to the public database. Reports are not investigated by NASA, the FAA, or the NTSB — they represent the reporter's perspective.

Pilot narrative

Verbatim from the de-identified NASA record. First-person account by the reporter. NASA strips identifying details (names, company, specific time); anonymization placeholders are ZZZ, X, Y.

My student and I were flying a pattern to land runway 18 at MBT. When turning base for 18 I saw a singular flashing red light on the runway over the numbers for 18 and it occurred to me that this was a drone. At this moment the red light or drone was moving laterally across the runway and then just stopped there in the middle of the runway but still near the numbers if not over them. We turned final and the flashing red light started to move down the runway, gaining speed and altitude as it did so and by the time we landed the red light was directly south of the field maybe 1 mile and 500 ft. above the ground. After clearing the runway we came to a stop on the taxi way to do the after landing checklist and I looked south of the field and I could still see the flashing red light directly south of the field and centered on the departure leg for 18 maybe what looked to be 500 ft.-1,000 ft. above the ground and a mile or two south of the runway. I alerted traffic that was taking off and traffic on final for 18 after me. The traffic on final reported the word of what I had seen to Nashville Approach. For this event, I was in Aircraft X. Additionally, the drone did not appear to have any other lights on it.

NASA classification — Anomalies

Airspace Violation
Conflict
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural

NASA classification — Assessments

Contributing Factors / Situations: Human Factors
Primary Problem: Human Factors

ASRS reports are voluntarily submitted, de-identified by NASA, and represent the reporter's perspective. The presence of reports on a topic cannot be used to infer prevalence in the National Airspace System. The authoritative source is the NASA ASRS Database Online at asrs.arc.nasa.gov ↗.