How to Use overfly in a Sentence

overfly

verb
  • The jets overflew the stadium.
  • But no one bans satellites from overflying such zones.
    — Tereza Pultarova, Space.com, 20 Aug. 2025
  • They are used by arriving airplanes and by airplanes overflying.
    — John Cox, USA TODAY, 30 Apr. 2017
  • Flights that normally overfly the Ukraine or Russia have been shifted and are now longer.
    — Michael Goldstein, Forbes, 7 Mar. 2022
  • The first attempt ended in a go-around; the second resulted in the aircraft overflying the runway.
    — Francie Ebert, NBC news, 16 May 2026
  • Singapore Air said that its flights were not overflying Iranian airspace.
    — Olivia Poh, Fortune, 14 Apr. 2024
  • Those wishing to overfly the mountainous country need to file a flight plan, but in general, overflights are often approved.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 23 July 2020
  • For flights that transit the airspace of multiple countries, pilots will be in touch with air traffic controllers on the ground in each country that their route overflies.
    — Zach Wichter, USA TODAY, 20 Feb. 2025
  • In the end, the flight landed safely—but not before overflying one plane and descending below 100 feet above ground.
    — Andrew Nusca, Fortune, 3 Aug. 2017
  • The railroad is also testing drones to overfly its property and infrared motion detectors to find trespassers.
    — Andrew Boryga, sun-sentinel.com, 4 Dec. 2019
  • And despite the frequency of tests, overflying Japan is an escalation.
    — Krishnadev Calamur, The Atlantic, 14 Sep. 2017
  • On Monday, alarm bells sounded in Japan when a North Korean missile overflew its northern provinces.
    — Graham Allison, The Atlantic, 28 Aug. 2017
  • To avoid the political complications of overflying countries on such a raid, the route to the Mediterranean lay farther south than the shortest great-circle course.
    — William Langewiesche, The Atlantic, 21 June 2018
  • These could include rovers outfitted with leading-edge cameras, spectrometers and lasers, along with helicopters that could overfly and map the lava tubes that might shelter future habitats.
    — Kevin Holden Platt, Forbes, 11 Mar. 2025
  • Already, Ukraine’s troops have managed to disable even T-90M tanks with anti-tank grenades dropped by overflying commercial drones.
    — Sébastien Roblin, Popular Mechanics, 1 May 2023
  • If Netanyahu were to overfly European countries who are members of the ICC, he could be forced to land and arrested.
    — Tal Shalev, CNN Money, 25 Sep. 2025
  • Could Japan shoot down North Korean missiles overflying its territory?
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 6 Nov. 2017
  • Icelandic officials and volcanologists will head out tomorrow morning (Icelandic) to overfly to inspect the area.
    — Erik Klemetti, Discover Magazine, 21 May 2011
  • After launching, the rocket will make a dogleg around Miami in Southern Florida but will overfly Cuba.
    — Eric Berger, Ars Technica, 11 Oct. 2019
  • Meanwhile, in Europe, military bases have in the past few years been regularly overflown by a large number of unknown drones, which are presumably gathering intelligence.
    — Phillips Payson O’Brien, The Atlantic, 2 June 2025
  • The North Korean missile was the fifth to pass over Japanese territory and the first since 2009 to overfly the main islands of Japan.
    — Jonathan Cheng and Peter Landers, WSJ, 29 Aug. 2017
  • Freed from all the entanglements that come with having to launch a ground invasion, air war can overfly not just morality and law but arguments, rationales, the calibration of risks to rewards and of suffering to satisfaction.
    — Fintan O’Toole, The New York Review of Books, 9 Apr. 2026
  • The Open Skies Treaty allows members countries to overfly one another, confirming that one country has adhered to arms control agreements and promoting transparency.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 3 Mar. 2020
  • The plane was originally designed to overfly the Soviet Union, gathering vital information on the country’s nuclear weapons program.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 9 Aug. 2023
  • So all those planes arriving from south of Seattle — the majority — must fly north past the airport, overflying either Eastside cities or Puget Sound to the west, then turn southward in an arc for final approach.
    — Dominic Gates, The Seattle Times, 25 Oct. 2018
  • The airline is constantly monitoring the evolving geopolitical situation in the territories served and overflown by its aircraft to ensure the highest level of flight safety and security.
    — Chloe Taylor, CNBC, 13 June 2025
  • For the moment, air crew unions seem reassured that the rules on overflying China won’t be a dramatic change to current regulations – but Cathay’s management is on notice that Beijing can turn the issue into a more potent weapon.
    — Washington Post, 20 Sep. 2019
  • But his flight, which would normally overfly several European countries, instead flew the length of the Mediterranean Sea and over the Strait of Gibraltar, according to flight tracking websites.
    — Tal Shalev, CNN Money, 25 Sep. 2025
  • In the meantime, any plans for travel that might overfly Russia or any of Eastern Europe should include regular information from your airline to see if the departure time, flight time and other possible changes, such as a technical stop.
    — John Cox, USA TODAY, 1 Mar. 2022
  • This pilotless plane was dropped first from a Blackbird and later from beneath the wing of a B-52 to overfly China in the early '70s, observing nuclear testing facilities and troop movements.
    — Phil Patton, WIRED, 1 Mar. 1996

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'overfly.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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