London’s Gatwick Airport suspended flights on Sunday when – yet another – reported drone sighting near the facility led authorities to halt operations as a safety precaution until the all-clear was given.
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Egg continues to congeal on the faces of officials involved in the notorious 2018 Gatwick Airport drone controversy – an enduring flap that may explain why a recent report of the “deliberate obstruction” of an approaching plane by a UAV in the restricted airspace wasn’t exactly shouted to the rooftops.
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The infamous drone sightings that caused the UK’s Gatwick Airport to close for almost two days in 2018 have dominated news broadcasts and counter-drone industry discussions for what seems like eons. But to date, no culprit has been found. And so, the couple that was wrongly accused of the chaos is now calling out the police for failure to publish a report on the incident.
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Sussex Police have paid out Paul and Elaine Gait, the couple accused of flying a drone close to Gatwick Airport back in December 2018. The couple was arrested at their house and held in police custody for 36 hours. The couple then sued the Sussex Police for wrongful arrest and false imprisonment.
Ok, so here is the latest theory of what might have happened during the Gatwick Fiasco. The Gatwick drone chaos ‘was an inside job’, the British newspaper The Evening Standard reports. Can somebody please show us any evidence that a drone was indeed seen at Gatwick? Photos? Video?
Talking about drone incidents, Gatwick Airport claims that a sustained drone attack was responsible for the severe travel disruption at the airport last year. In an article by BBC News, it is reported that over 100 drone sightings had been seen over three days and the majority of the sightings were made by police officers or airport workers. The main question remains though, where is the evidence that a drone was indeed the culprit?
EasyJet says that the drone chaos at Gatwick was a “wake-up call” for airports. Right before the Christmas holidays, alleged drone sightings caused the airport to shut down and as a result, many flights were either canceled or diverted leaving many travelers stranded. EasyJet claims that the Gatwick fiasco has cost them £15m ($19.6M) in passenger compensation and lost revenues, and hit 82,000 customers.
As we have recently seen at Gatwick and Heathrow Airport, people are quick to point to drones as the culprits when often times other items may have been seen and misidentified as unmanned aerial systems. This morning DJI has sent out an official statement urging people to be cautious in evaluating reports of drone incidents and also say that the recent sightings at multiple airports may have been influenced by publicity.
In the aftermath of the Gatwick Fiasco, the UK government outlined new drone rules in a document titled: “Taking Flight: The Future of Drones in the UK” to reduce the likelihood of another supposedly drone-caused fiasco at one of the major airports in England. Here’s DJI’s official response as they welcome new UK drone regulation.
Three weeks after the Gatwick fiasco, now Heathrow Airport halted departures and closed a runway after a possible drone sighting late Tuesday evening. About an hour later, the departures had resumed at Europe’s busiest airport. On Tuesday night, Britain’s transport secretary, Chris Grayling said that the military was ready to deploy the same military-grade counter-drone equipment that was used at Gatwick, “should it prove necessary.”
Heathrow and Gatwick Airport are about to invest heavily in counter-drone technology in the wake of the Gatwick drone fiasco from before the Holidays. During three days Gatwick was closed for 36 hours diverting and canceling about 1,000 flights and disrupting 140,000 travelers’ plans.
Now more than a week later after the infamous Gatwick Airport drone sightings, few questions have been answered. As of yet, no evidence that one or more drones were actually involved has emerged. Neither have any culprits been found. What has become very obvious though is how ill-prepared Gatwick Airport (and likely many other airports) are for occurrences like these.
A cartoon perfectly sums up the Gatwick Airport fiasco. It was posted by UK Paramedic Humour on Facebook and it shows one police officer saying to the other policeman holding a smoking rifle: “I don’t think that was a drone…” as the two are looking down on a Santa and his crashed sleigh and reindeer. In the background, you can see Gatwick Airport.
The Gatwick Airport confusion. This story is getting stranger by the day it seems. First, two suspects were arrested earlier in the weekend. The man and woman turned out to be innocent and have since been released. Then, a little later, a damaged drone was found near the airport. However, now the police say that there is: “a possibility there never was a drone.” Meanwhile, there have been 67 drone sightings at Gatwick Airport the last week. If this all starts to sound confusing to you, well, you’re not alone.
Hopefully, the drone chaos at Gatwick Airport will now have come to an end with the arrest of two people in connection with the ‘criminal use of drones’ which affected at least 120,000 people on Wednesday and Thursday. According to the Sussex police, a man and a woman were apprehended by officers in the Gatwick area around 10 PM on Friday.
Another drone sighting causes Gatwick Airport to shut down again late afternoon around 17:10 GMT, only to reopen again after 90 minutes. A spokesperson for the airport said that the suspension of all flights in and out of Gatwick was a precaution. Military measures that had been put into place that made it possible for the airport to safely reopen.
As we move into the third day of drone chaos at Gatwick Airport, we learned that there have been over 50 sightings of the unmanned aircraft on Thursday and that the drone was spotted ‘within the last hour’ later in the day. The drone chaos at Gatwick started Wednesday evening and lasted all of Thursday. Now officials say that the airport will remain closed at least until Friday morning 6 am local time. The drone chaos continues and Gatwick remains closed going into Friday. Read below the latest details of the mess that has now affected more than 350,000 people according to some reports.
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Today’s drone news has been dominated by the closing of Gatwick Airport as a result of drones entering the airspace over the landing and take off areas. Many flights have been canceled, leaving thousands of travelers stranded at Gatwick Airport and at other airports as well. DJI just offered their support to the Gatwick Airport incident investigators in an official announcement. There is as of yet however no indication that DJI drones were involved. Police have described them as ‘industrial’ drones. This is not the first time that drones have caused chaos as Gatwick Airport btw. Last year we had another situation in which drones caused many flights to divert or stay in a holding pattern.
Drones have caused chaos for many thousands of holiday travelers at London’s second-busiest airport. Officials of London’s Gatwick airport have said that 110,000 passengers and 760 flights are scheduled today. However, because of the multiple drone inferences currently, none of these flights can take off or land. The first delays caused by the drones happened late last night. Normal flight operations resumed around 3 am, only to be halted again an hour later when a drone was seen again.
Earlier this summer, on July 2nd to be exact there was a drone flying in the restricted airspace of Gatwick Airport in Great Britain. This 2-minute video released by NATS shows the chaos caused by the drone pilot. Various airplanes were directed to holding patterns and some planes ended up diverting to other airports.
BBC News just reported that an Airbus 319 narrowly missed a large drone while approaching Gatwick Airport. A UK Airprox Board report revealed that 130 lives were at risk when a large diameter drone passed directly over the wing, in between the wingtip and the fuselage. An “airprox” is when distances between aircraft are seen to compromise safety. The incident happened on July 9th when a drone was “flown into conflict” with the Airbus 319. According to the report, there had been a high chance of collision.
