Drones Cause Chaos at London's Gatwick airport.

Post Reply
fountainhall

Drones Cause Chaos at London's Gatwick airport.

Post by fountainhall »

I feel sorry for any Brits departing London's second airport Gatwick for their Christmas vacations. Since 9:00 pm local time on Wednesday, the airport has been closed after two large drones were discovered flying within the limits of acceptability for safe aircraft operations. Even though the military has joined the police, attempts to find and detain the offendesr have been unsuccessful and the drone activity has continued. Result? All flights have been cancelled and the airport still remains closed for the foreseeable future. The authorities have considered and rejected shooting down the drone because of the possibility of stray bullets hitting bystanders.

Understandably the airport is in chaos, as are airlines whose planes have had to be diverted to dozens of other airports, some as far as Amsterdam and Paris. Till now, about 120,000 passengers have been stranded at Gatwick. Even if the drones are downed soon, it will take several days for flights to start operating normally again.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... ort-drones
User avatar
Gaybutton
Posts: 21459
Joined: Sat Jul 31, 2010 11:21 am
Location: Thailand
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 1306 times

Re: Drones Cause Chaos at London's Gatwick airport.

Post by Gaybutton »

I hope they quickly catch the idiots flying drones near an airport. I hope none of our board members trying to get to Thailand for the holidays were affected.

Whoever was doing this needs to be heavily fined, along with a nice prison sentence. According to the video below, if the morons responsible for flying these drones are caught, it's a minimum 5 year prison sentence.


deanagam

Re: Drones Cause Chaos at London's Gatwick airport.

Post by deanagam »

If the authorities are afraid of the possibility of stray bullets hitting bystanders, they could use laser guns.
After all this is the realm of James Bond.
Or is there a motif to implicate the Russians yet again?
Another distraction from Brexit?
User avatar
Gaybutton
Posts: 21459
Joined: Sat Jul 31, 2010 11:21 am
Location: Thailand
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 1306 times

Re: Drones Cause Chaos at London's Gatwick airport.

Post by Gaybutton »

deanagam wrote:If the authorities are afraid of the possibility of stray bullets hitting bystanders, they could use laser guns.
My guess is along with the potential danger of shooting down the drones (and I don't really buy the idea that it would be so dangerous to shoot them down), they are also worried about where they might fall.
Jun

Re: Drones Cause Chaos at London's Gatwick airport.

Post by Jun »

They should shoot the bloody drones down and get on with the flights. It cannot be that difficult to figure out where to fire from to reduce risk. Hell, if the bullets land on an empty runway, the probability of injury must be low. Or send other drones up to take them out.

The country seems to be afflicted with some kind of losing culture. - too PC, too cautious, too much health & safety.

Could you imagine this lot sending the SAS in through the windows to clear a few terrorists from an embassy ? How far we have fallen since Mrs Thatcher.
User avatar
Gaybutton
Posts: 21459
Joined: Sat Jul 31, 2010 11:21 am
Location: Thailand
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 1306 times

Re: Drones Cause Chaos at London's Gatwick airport.

Post by Gaybutton »

Good!

A man and a woman, 47 and 54 years old. Not a couple of fool teenagers, but adults. What were these idiots thinking?
________________________________________

Gatwick drone chaos: Man and woman arrested

By Laura Smith-Spark and Nada Bashir, CNN

December 22, 2018

Gatwick Airport, England (CNN)A man and a woman have been arrested on suspicion of "the criminal use of drones" at Gatwick following several days of disruption at Britain's second busiest airport.

The 47-year-old man and 54-year-old woman were arrested in Crawley -- the closest major town to the airport -- late Friday evening, police said, on suspicion of disrupting civil aviation services "to endanger or likely to endanger safety of operations or persons."

The suspects, both from Crawley, remained in custody as of 11 a.m. (6 a.m. ET) on Saturday.

"Our investigations are still ongoing, and our activities at the airport continue to build resilience to detect and mitigate further incursions from drones, by deploying a range of tactics," Sussex Police Superintendent James Collis said.

"The arrests we have made are a result of our determination to keep the public safe from harm, every line of inquiry will remain open to us until we are confident that we have mitigated further threats to the safety of passengers."

The airport aims to run a full schedule of flights on Saturday but warned travelers to expect some delays and cancellations. Passengers were advised to continue checking the status of their flights with their airline before setting out.

There are 757 flights scheduled for Saturday, carrying more than 124,000 passengers, an airport spokesman said.

Full story: https://us.cnn.com/2018/12/22/uk/gatwic ... index.html
traveller123

Re: Drones Cause Chaos at London's Gatwick airport.

Post by traveller123 »

The man and woman previously detained have now been released without charge
fountainhall

Re: Drones Cause Chaos at London's Gatwick airport.

Post by fountainhall »

What is so nonsensical is that airport authorities around the world have known about possible problems with drones for a long time. This is more true when you realise that a drone actually hit a British Airways aircraft approaching London's Heathrow airport in April 2016! Last year alone Dubai was closed three times as a result of drone activity, Now Dubai has introduced very strict regulations, Before anyone can operate a drone, they must apply for and be granted a license and undergo a training programme. Why the UK government has not followed suit, beats me!
fountainhall

Re: Drones Cause Chaos at London's Gatwick airport.

Post by fountainhall »

The police already have egg on their faces after releasing a couple whom they had arrested and detailed for 36 hours. They had nothing to do with any drones but somehow their names were also released to the media and they are now considering legal action. Then today there is speculation that there might never have been a drone in the first place.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... bout-drone
Post Reply