DRONE SHUTS GATWICK AIRPORT.
Rogue operator causes day of cancelled flights
The drone that continues to bring Britain’s Gatwick airport to its knees is no bigger than a seagull, about 30 centimetres across. The drone’s operator (or possibly operators) had by Thursday night managed to toy with police, a helicopter and marksmen for 24 hours.
The result has been chaotic, embarrassing and devastating for more than 100,000 passengers desperate to get somewhere in time for Christmas. Their nightmare isn’t yet over. Thursday night Chris Woodroofe, Gatwick’s chief operating officer, conceded the knock-on effect of the drone incursion at his airport, Britain’s second biggest, would realistically last “several days”.
Stranded travellers — and the public at large — were left to wonder how the authorities had failed to capture the drone pilot or shoot down or disable the craft. Every time the airport hoped to get flights going again, up would pop the drone within the one kilometre no-fly zone, preventing passenger jets from taking off. In all, more than 760 flights were grounded.
“This feels like a kidnapping,” said Andrea Tortora del Lacorte, 25, an Italian lawyer who had been stuck at Gatwick’s north terminal from 5.30 a.m. on Thursday. He was trying to get to Naples for Christmas and was not alone in feeling despondent. He would end up paying £350 ($600) for a flight home from Luton airport and £70 ($120) in taxis to travel the 110 kilometres.
The crisis had begun Wednesday night at 9.03 p.m. when airport staff spotted at least one drone hovering above the runway. Gatwick went into shutdown, with passengers forced to sleep in the terminals.
In the next three hours, the drone was seen at least five more times. With a typical battery life that allows a flying time of 30 minutes, its pilot was able to launch it, land it, change batteries and repeat the process without getting caught. By 3 a.m. Thursday, Gatwick was confident it had seen off the threat and reopened its runway.
The optimism didn’t last long. Within three-quarters of an hour, the drone was buzzing again, violating airspace and prompting aircraft to be grounded again. The runway would not open again.
Baroness Sugg, the aviation minister, popped up on the radio warning the drone pilot he faced five years in jail when caught.
Passengers were becoming more upset as the clock ticked. At Stansted airfield — 90 kilometres away — a Gatwick flight rerouted there had been stuck on its runway for four hours, the passengers in a limbo.
One passenger on a flight from Cape Verde was so desperate he allegedly opened the door while a fellow passenger shouted, “I’m a terrorist” to gain police attention and ensure the plane would be evacuated.
Elsewhere, Mary Isokariari, stuck at Cardiff airport, paid £850 ($1,450) for an overnight taxi to get her back to London. “We just wanted to get home,” she said.
Police set up snipers on the Gatwick runway, some armed with what appeared to be shotguns that could — like shooting a clay pigeon — have a wider target area. A force helicopter circled, but police were barred from taking pot shots at the drone for fear of a stray bullet hitting bystanders.
Officers resorted to standing on the roof of the airport police station by early afternoon, deploying a high-tech drone detection system.
But there were serious questions about why outside companies with serious expertise had seemingly not been called in sooner. One company, Metis Aerospace, which developed a drone detection kit successfully tested at Southend airport in May, was called into action only Thursday morning, rather than the night before.
The sophisticated kit, that takes just a few minutes to set up, can detect not only the drone but its operator on the ground within seconds. The company’s technical team was stuck in traffic trying to get from its base in Lincolnshire to the Sussex airport. One source was dismayed the company had not been called earlier. Companies that can deploy jamming devices are also thought to have been called in only toward the end of the morning.
In the terminals, passengers used coats as makeshift blankets and queued for details of new flights or else made their way to hotels around the airport. Some gave up on Christmas plans altogether. Mamosta Abdulla was trying to get to his father’s memorial service but was resigned to missing it.
“We are in Iraq with bombs going off nearby and the plane still lands. But here some drones have shut down the airport,” he complained.
Andri Kyprianou, from Cyprus, who had been visiting London, said: “I haven’t slept since yesterday morning. We are very tired. It’s freezing, we are cold, having to wear all of these coats for extra blankets. There were pregnant women, one of them was sleeping on the floor. There were people with small babies in here overnight. We saw disabled people on chairs.”
By 3 p.m. Thursday, with local police clearly struggling, the Ministry of Defence announced it had been called in to offer assistance.
What that help was the military would not say, but Lord West, the former First Sea Lord and former security adviser to Gordon Brown, told the House of Lords its armoury included jamming devices and systems to override drone control systems.
“If I got my hands on who did this I’d string them up myself. It’s unbelievable they still haven’t got him,” said Tom Horne, 63, from Suffolk, waiting to fly to Abu Dhabi with his wife Jan, adding: “It makes this country look pathetic.”