Kites have recently been flown at altitudes of up to 1,500 feet, and large kites fitted with LED lights have been mistaken for drones by pilots flying at night, Senior Manager for Air Traffic Control Jude Peiris has said, according to the Daily Mirror, which filed the warning at 7.30 a.m. on Thursday.
“Flying kites, operating drones, releasing balloons and sky lanterns, using laser beams and setting off sky-bound fireworks pose a serious risk to aircraft operations.”
The altitude figure measured against the rule
Peiris set out the regulations in the same filing. Launching objects into the sky is prohibited within a five-kilometre radius of an airport’s perimeter. Outside that zone, kites and balloons may be flown up to 300 feet, subject to applicable regulations and permission requirements.
The 1,500 feet he reports is five times that ceiling. The filing does not make the comparison, and does not say where the 1,500-foot kites were flown — so whether they also breached the five-kilometre prohibition is unstated. On the figures as given, the recreational practice he describes is operating at five times the altitude the law allows in the places where it is allowed at all.
A sighting is not a free event
The more concrete disclosure is what happens after a pilot reports something in the flight path. Authorities have to deploy police, security forces and airport security personnel to locate and remove the object.
“These operations consume significant manpower, funds and time. We are also sometimes required to conduct formal investigations into sightings reported by pilots and communicate the findings to the relevant airlines.”
One such investigation, Peiris said, resolved a reported drone sighting as a large kite fitted with LED lights, flown at night. He said legal action could follow against those responsible, depending on what investigations find.
The hazards that are not kites
Peiris listed three others that have drawn less attention.
Sky lanterns carry burning wicks, which he said could endanger aircraft on contact. Laser beams directed at aircraft are a serious concern, particularly at night — and here he identified a source that is not recreational at all: some farmers use laser-equipped flashlights to deter wild animals, and directing those beams towards aircraft, intentionally or otherwise, could be dangerous. That places a crop-protection practice, in a country where human–elephant conflict drives sustained policy attention, inside an aviation-safety warning.
Aerial fireworks are a particular concern in the Katunayake area, he said, where the fireworks industry has existed for centuries. Katunayake is the location of Bandaranaike International Airport — so the country’s principal airport shares its immediate district with a long-established industry whose product is launched into the air. The filing does not say how that is currently managed.
The fourth warning this year, from the fourth institution
What the filing does not place in context is that this is not an isolated advisory. Four separate bodies have warned about kite-flying in Sri Lanka in 2026, each about a different hazard:
| Date | Body | Hazard |
|---|---|---|
| 6 August | Airport and Aviation Services | Aircraft take-off and landing |
| 17 August | Lady Ridgeway Hospital | Electrocution, burns, falls |
| 3 September | National System Operator | 220 kV and 132 kV grid lines |
| 15 October | Air Traffic Control | Flight path, laser, lanterns, fireworks |
The aviation warnings have a precedent behind them. On 15 July, a Sri Lanka Air Force Y-12 that had departed Ratmalana Airport was forced into an emergency return landing, and inspection found large quantities of kite string entangled in its left wheel, left engine area and other critical components. The National System Operator’s September warning followed kite strings disrupting the national grid badly enough to force emergency shutdowns.
So the hazard is documented rather than theoretical, across aviation and electricity supply, within the past three months.
Who he is asking
Rather than addressing kite-flyers directly, Peiris appealed to religious leaders and school principals in areas surrounding airports across the country to educate children and the public.
“Even if the passengers aboard these domestic and international flights are not your own parents, children, siblings or relatives, they are the loved ones of someone else.”
He urged the public to obtain the necessary permission before launching anything into the sky.
Not reported
The filing does not say how many drone or kite sightings have been reported by pilots this year, how many triggered a search, or what those operations have cost — despite resting its case on that expense. It gives no date or location for the 1,500-foot kites, and does not say whether any aircraft has come closer to harm than the July Y-12 incident.
It does not say which authority grants the permission it tells the public to obtain, or how to apply. No prosecution is reported, and the filing does not say whether legal action has ever actually been taken, or under which law. It carries no comment from the Civil Aviation Authority, Airport and Aviation Services, or the Sri Lanka Air Force, and no figure for how many of the reported sightings turned out to be genuine drones rather than kites.
A note on sourcing
This account rests on a single newsroom. The Daily Mirror filed it at 7.30 a.m. on Thursday, about two hours before this article was written, and a search of the other verified outlets found no independent report of Peiris’s remarks — consistent with a same-morning filing not yet picked up. Searches returned only older editions, including an Air Force appeal and the 2026 kite-festival coverage, none of them this event.
Source: Daily Mirror.
