Dash 8-100
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Other / Unknown
Conflict NMAC
Human Factors
On a descent to 4;000 FT into LGA; passing through 4;500 MSL; approximately 2 miles south of Manhattan I saw a small object coming into view in front of the airplane and slightly to the right of the nose. At first I thought it may be a large bird or a mylar balloon; but as it passed by us; approximately a few hundred feet below our flight path and a few hundred feet to our right I could see distinctly that it was a small remote control airplane; traveling in roughly the opposite direction. I didn't have more than perhaps a one or two second glance at it; and couldn't see any more detail; other than a rough size of about 2 to 3 feet and mostly white in color. My First Officer never saw it; but we briefly discussed that it seemed important enough to report to ATC; so we did. The flight continued on our assigned path; north up the Hudson River to a visual approach to 22 a few minutes later. On the ground; I called the phone number for New York TRACON given to us in flight to provide more details about the event. I gave them what little details I had from the sighting; and then they asked me to call another phone number for NYPD's aviation division to recapitulate. Since my First Officer hadn't been able to see the airplane; and no other airplane on the frequency seemed to report it while we were on that frequency I was beginning to question myself; but the Controller I spoke to over the phone as well as the NYPD Officer both quickly noted that they had received numerous reports of the same nature in the last few weeks concerning remote control airplanes in almost the same spot at similar altitudes. I don't know why a remote control airplane would be flying that high or in that position; perhaps someone was flying it much lower and it got out of range of their transmitter and was just flying away in a stable attitude but no longer in control. Once I realized what the object was; I asked my First Officer if he saw it; but he didn't. I spoke to an Officer who took the information about the event and told me that they were responding to the sighting already because they have been receiving so many of the same reports lately and it seems to be becoming a problem. I would say that ATC seemed particularly interested in knowing about sightings of this nature; so I would suggest pilots report it when they see it.
DHC8 Captain reports encountering model aircraft at 4;500 FT just south of Manhattan during approach to LGA.