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Tens of thousands of passengers have been disrupted by drones flying over one of the UK's busiest airports. Gatwick's runway has been shut since Wednesday night, when two devices were seen flying over the perimeter fence. The airport said a drone had been spotted "in the last hour" and the runway would not open "until it was safe to do so".

About 110,000 passengers on 760 flights were due to fly on Thursday. Disruption could last "several days". Those due to travel have been told to check the status of their flight, while Easyjet told its passengers not to go to Gatwick if their flights have been cancelled.Sussex Police said it was not terror-related but a "deliberate act" of disruption. Dr Alan McKenna, from the University of Kent, said the drones appeared to be "of an industrial size" not "one you can buy from the shops". The shutdown started just after 21:00 GMT on Wednesday, when two drones were spotted flying "over the perimeter fence and into where the runway operates from". The runway briefly reopened at 03:01 but was closed again about 45 minutes later amid "a further sighting of drones". Gatwick chief operating officer Chris Woodroofe said: "The police are looking for the operator and that is the way to disable the drone."

He said police had not wanted to shoot the devices down because of the risk from stray bullets. He said it remained unsafe to reopen the airport after the drone had been spotted too close to the runway. Mr Woodroofe said: "If we were to reopen today we will first repatriate passengers who are in the wrong place which could take several days."

Police in neighboring Sussex said there are no signs that the drone incident is terror related, but added that the activity is suspicious. "We are still getting sightings of the drone in and around the airfield," said the official in charge of the investigation, Justin Burtenshaw. "Each time we believe we get close to the operator the drone disappears and when we look to reopen the airfield the drone reappears, so I'm absolutely convinced it is a deliberate act to disrupt Gatwick airport."

The Army has deployed "specialist equipment" to Gatwick Airport as the travel chaos caused by drone activity shows no sign of abating. It comes as Easyjet has cancelled all of its flights from Gatwick for the rest of the day. The airline, the biggest operator at the airport, said there was "no indication" when Gatwick would reopen. Tens of thousands of passengers on several airlines have been disrupted by drones flying over the airport. In a tweet, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson had confirmed the military deployment. He said: "The armed forces have a range of unique capabilities and this isn't something we would usually deploy but we are there to assist and do everything we can so that they are in a position to open the airport at the earliest opportunity."

Men in military uniform were seen arriving at the airport at about 20:00 GMT and liaising with police officers, before entering the grounds in convoy. Officials from various government departments have been meeting and the prime minister is being kept informed. Theresa May's spokesman said: "This is a serious incident, it's causing widespread disruption for passengers. "The intention, obviously, is that it should be brought to a close as soon as possible." Gatwick's runway has been shut since Wednesday night because devices have been repeatedly flown over the airfield. A spokeswoman said it does not expect to re-open "for the foreseeable future and the advice to passengers remains not to come to the airport". An Easyjet spokesperson said: "We are making every effort to get people to their destination at this important time of the year, but following reports of drones flying over Gatwick Airport, the runway remains closed and all flights are currently suspended." The airline said it expected disruption to continue into Friday and is advising all passengers to check the status of their flight.

Passengers Carl and Lisa McCluskey, from Lincolnshire, found out from an air stewardess earlier that their flight to Egypt was delayed until further notice and they would need to check in with their airline Thomas Cook at 06:00 GMT on Friday. Ryanair has announced all its flights operating to or from Gatwick on Friday, will instead depart from or arrive at London Stansted. Sussex Police said the drone activity was not terror-related but was a "deliberate act" of disruption, using "industrial specification" drones. Gatwick chief executive Stewart Wingate agreed it was a "highly targeted activity" and added: "It cannot be right that drones can close a vital part of our national infrastructure in this way. This is obviously a relatively new technology and we need to think through together the right solutions to make sure it cannot happen again." He is still "not in a position to say when it will be safe to reopen the airport". About 110,000 passengers on 760 flights were due to fly on Thursday, but 633 flights were cancelled. Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said: "We'll do everything we can to ensure that if Gatwick is not open again quickly that we can get [passengers] away from other airports." He could not confirm whether the perpetrators were close to being caught but added: "There's a huge amount of effort going on - we've got up-to-date technology, we've brought special technology into Gatwick to try and track this down." The shutdown started just after 21:00 [9 pm GMT] on Wednesday when two drones were spotted flying "over the perimeter fence and into where the runway operates from".

The runway briefly reopened at 03:01 on Thursday but was closed again about 45 minutes later due to "a further sighting of drones". The airport said at about 12:00 a drone had been spotted "in the last hour". Gatwick chief operating officer Chris Woodroofe said: "The police are looking for the operator and that is the way to disable the drone." He said police had not wanted to shoot the devices down because of the risk from stray bullets. He said it remained unsafe to reopen the airport after the drone had been spotted too close to the runway. Mr Woodroofe added: "If we were to reopen today we will first repatriate passengers who are in the wrong place which could take several days."

More than 20 police units from two forces are searching for the perpetrator, who could face up to five years in jail. Supt Justin Burtenshaw, head of armed policing for Sussex and Surrey, described attempts to catch whoever was controlling the drones as "painstaking" because it was "a difficult and challenging thing to locate them". "Each time we believe we get close to the operator, the drone disappears; when we look to reopen the airfield, the drone reappears," he said. As a result of an appeal for information, Sussex Police said it had been inundated with calls, but urged people to contact with information "focussed on the identity or location of the drone operator". About 10,000 passengers were affected overnight on Wednesday and Gatwick said 110,000 people were due to either take off or land at the airport on Thursday.

Incoming planes were diverted to other airports including London Heathrow, Luton, Birmingham, Manchester, Cardiff, Glasgow, Paris and Amsterdam. Crowds of travellers spent the morning waiting inside Gatwick's terminal for updates, while others reported being stuck on grounded planes for hours. A Gatwick spokeswoman said extra staff had been brought in and they were "trying their best" to provide food and water to those who needed it. The Civil Aviation Authority said it considered this event to be an "extraordinary circumstance", and therefore airlines were not obligated to pay any financial compensation to passengers. Alex Neill, from consumer rights group Which?, said people "may still be entitled to meals, refreshments, hotel accommodation or transfers".

Flights have resumed at London’s Gatwick Airport after a full day of cancellations yesterday due to a mysterious drone that was spotted repeatedly in the area. Flying drones near an airport is illegal because flights are unable to take off and land due to possible collisions. The British military was even called out to search for the drone operator, but they still have no idea who’s behind this deliberate disruption of a major transportation hub. It’s still unclear what kind of drone or drones may be the problem, though the local police have announced that the “devices used are of an industrial specification.” No clear pictures of the drone have been released.

Other airports around the world are on high alert because if this is a coordinated disruption it obviously doesn’t take much to put an entire airport out of commission. It appears that all you need is a drone with a sufficiently long range to not get caught. “This is an unprecedented issue. This isn’t a Gatwick Airport issue. It’s not even a UK issue. It’s an international issue,” Gatwick’s chief executive Chris Woodroofe said today after flights resumed, according to the Guardian.
“We have been working with technology providers ourselves for the last 12 months but stood here today, there is no commercially available airport licensed proven technology that I could implement,” Woodroofe continued. But police are reportedly trying to use radio signal jammers, just the same, in an effort to stop the drones. The airport is crawling with more police and military than usual, as would be expected. And there have been calls to just “shoot down” the drone, though that’s much more involved than it seems. First you have to catch it.

From the Evening Standard:

The decision that it was safe to resume flying was taken after police, Army and RAF specialists lined up an armory of counter measures. They included a hi-tech tracking system of the kind used in the struggle to liberate Mosul in northern Iraq, deployed in tandem with “drone killer” equipment that can disable them.

New electronic jammers and police snipers armed with Heckler & Koch rifles also form part of the defenses to stop the rogue drone operators threatening the airport again. Britain has been a leader in using electronic jamming systems — particularly in detecting and taking out improvised explosive devices — in Afghanistan.

Despite the fact that flights have resumed, there are still significant delays and cancellations at Gatwick. As of 12:20pm local time, 7:20am Eastern time, 91 of 412 scheduled arrivals to Gatwick have already been cancelled and 64 of 371 departures to Gatwick have taken place. Who’s behind the disruption? Your guess is as good as anyone’s, it would seem. Some believe that it’s domestic actors like British environmentalists. Others speculate that it could be a state actor like China or Russia testing out what it would take to shut down an airport. If it’s the latter we now know that the answer is “it doesn’t take much.” Authorities are encouraged by the fact that there hasn’t been a drone sighting since before 10:00pm last night local time. “We have made a lot of progress overnight, obviously working hard with our partners and other forces and the airport authority,” Sussex Police official Steve Barry told the Evening Standard.

“We are in a much better position today. We’ve got a number of lines of inquiry and we are quite positive in terms of the way that we are progressing the investigation.” But the pilot’s union is understandably concerned that the authorities have yet to find the culprit. The union said in a tweet this morning that it “remains extremely concerned at the risk of a drone collision. It is possible that the rogue drones may go undetected around the perimeter or could obstruct the flight paths outside the immediate detection zone.”

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Two people have been arrested in connection with a string of drone sightings which brought Gatwick Airport to a standstill. Sussex Police said it made the arrests at about 22:00 GMT on Friday.

Flights from Gatwick were grounded for more than a day after the devices were seen near the runway. The force said "pro-active" investigations into "the criminal use of drones" continued, and urged the public to contact it with information. Police have yet to disclose the ages and genders of those arrested and where they were apprehended. Supt James Collis said officers remained at the airport, ready to "detect and mitigate" further drone flights by deploying a range of tactics.

highdesert wrote: Fri Dec 21, 2018 10:49 pm Earlier reports said these industrial drones weren't ordinary out-of-the-box models but had been modified.

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.

A man and woman arrested in connection with drone sightings that grounded flights at Gatwick Airport have been released without charge. The 47-year-old man and 54-year-old woman, from Crawley, West Sussex, were arrested on Friday night on suspicion of "the criminal use of drones". Sussex Police said the pair were no longer suspects.

Meanwhile, Detective Chief Superintendent Tingley Jason Tingley told Sky News officers had found a damaged drone near the airport. He said they would be working with the "forensic opportunities that the drone presents". Flights were suspended for more than 36 hours when a device was first spotted close to the runway on Wednesday night.

Detective Chief Superintendent Tingley said the arrested man and woman had "fully co-operated" with inquiries and he was "satisfied that they are no longer suspects in the drone incidents at Gatwick".

He added there was "always a possibility that there may not have been any genuine drone activity in the first place", but they were working on a range of information from members of the public, police officers and staff working at Gatwick who had reported otherwise.

gator68 wrote: Sun Dec 23, 2018 12:20 pm That couple has been cleared and released.

www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-england-46665615

Police now saying:

He added there was "always a possibility that there may not have been any genuine drone activity in the first place", but they were working on a range of information from members of the public, police officers and staff working at Gatwick who had reported otherwise.

In my experience eye-witness accounts of drones are unreliable. They are nearly impossible to see in daylight when more that a few hundred yards away unless you know exactly where to look. At night you might see lights, but then it is impossible to judge distance and you might be seeing a plane or helicopter very far away.

The suggestion there may not have been any drones at Gatwick Airport was a "miscommunication by police", a government source has told the BBC. During a conference call between ministers, chaired by Transport Secretary Chris Grayling, it was agreed the 67 drone sightings were legitimate. But over the weekend, a senior police officer said it was a "possibility" there had never been a drone. About 1,000 flights were affected during the airport's 36 hours of chaos. The airport has spent £5m since Wednesday on new equipment and technology to prevent copycat attacks. Sussex Police has insisted it was not "back to square one" after releasing an arrested man, 47, and woman, 54, without charge on Sunday.

The hour-long call included David Lidington for the Cabinet Office, the Home Secretary Sajid Javid, Security Minister Ben Wallace, Aviation Minister Baroness Sugg, a defence minister, the airport and police. A government source said the force accepted that there had been "poor communications". Det Ch Supt Jason Tingley had cast doubt over possible drone sightings as police had not been able to acquire any footage. Asked about this, he said: "We are working with human beings saying they have seen something." He later clarified the force was "actively investigating" 67 reports of sightings and there were some "persons of interest" but would not reveal if officers were close to making any further arrests.

The airport has offered a £50,000 reward, through Crimestoppers, and another £10,000 has been put up by the charity's chairman Lord Ashcroft to catch the culprits responsible for the drama, which affected some 140,000 passengers. A damaged drone found near the perimeter of the airport near Horley, close to the last reported sighting, is also being examined. A spokesman said: "We are clear that there were multiple confirmed sightings of drone activity at the airport. "Therefore we took the necessary actions to ensure the safety of passengers using our airport. Safety will always be our number one priority.

Eureka1911 wrote: Sun Dec 23, 2018 11:36 pm Here is a helpful drone identification chart:

highdesert wrote:The story changes, it was "miscommunication" that there were no drones.

The suggestion there may not have been any drones at Gatwick Airport was a "miscommunication by police", a government source has told the BBC. During a conference call between ministers, chaired by Transport Secretary Chris Grayling, it was agreed the 67 drone sightings were legitimate. But over the weekend, a senior police officer said it was a "possibility" there had never been a drone. About 1,000 flights were affected during the airport's 36 hours of chaos. The airport has spent £5m since Wednesday on new equipment and technology to prevent copycat attacks. Sussex Police has insisted it was not "back to square one" after releasing an arrested man, 47, and woman, 54, without charge on Sunday.

The hour-long call included David Lidington for the Cabinet Office, the Home Secretary Sajid Javid, Security Minister Ben Wallace, Aviation Minister Baroness Sugg, a defence minister, the airport and police. A government source said the force accepted that there had been "poor communications". Det Ch Supt Jason Tingley had cast doubt over possible drone sightings as police had not been able to acquire any footage. Asked about this, he said: "We are working with human beings saying they have seen something." He later clarified the force was "actively investigating" 67 reports of sightings and there were some "persons of interest" but would not reveal if officers were close to making any further arrests.

The airport has offered a £50,000 reward, through Crimestoppers, and another £10,000 has been put up by the charity's chairman Lord Ashcroft to catch the culprits responsible for the drama, which affected some 140,000 passengers. A damaged drone found near the perimeter of the airport near Horley, close to the last reported sighting, is also being examined. A spokesman said: "We are clear that there were multiple confirmed sightings of drone activity at the airport. "Therefore we took the necessary actions to ensure the safety of passengers using our airport. Safety will always be our number one priority.

[urlhttps://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-46670714][/url]

gator68 wrote: Tue Jan 08, 2019 3:19 pm Heathrow closed for a bit now because someone saw a drone. ]/quote]

Even uglier closing Heathrow than Gatwick, hope MOT has a security plan tin place o defeat airport drones.