Now police admit: Some Gatwick sightings could have been OUR drones
THE Gatwick drone fiasco took another farcical turn yesterday as police confessed that some of the reported sightings may have been of their own aircraft.
Giles York, Chief Constable of Sussex Police, revealed his force had launched drones in the search for those responsible for bringing Britain’s second-busiest airport to its knees before Christmas.
But he admitted that some of the 115 people who reported seeing drones above the runway – leading to its closure for almost 36 hours – may have been looking at aircraft operated by his officers.
‘We will have launched our own Sussex Police drones at the time with a view to investigate, with a view to engage, with a view to survey the area, looking for the drone,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. ‘So there could be some level of confusion there as well.’
Asked whether the drone threat had been real, he insisted: ‘I am absolutely certain the drone was there. We have been able to corroborate 115 reports. Ninety-two of them are from credible people that we’ve been able to confirm.’
As criticism of the inquiry grew, Mr York admitted that detectives had not identified the type of drone involved, much less recovered it or caught its owner. ‘We are getting closer to being able to identify the model,’ he said. ‘I think we live in an age where everybody now expects us to be able to produce a high-quality image or video footage of what was going on and that just hasn’t been available.’
He also apologised to Paul Gait, 47, and his wife Elaine Kirk, 54, who were wrongly arrested over the drone flights, despite having watertight alibis. ‘I’m really sorry for what he [Mr Gait] has experienced and the feeling of violation around it,’ he said. ‘ I am really sorry for what he went through, but the reason why we held him was so that we could dispel everything in the first instance.’
Mr York argued that it would have been worse to release Mr Gait ‘under investigation’ while officers continued inquiries for weeks or months than it was to keep him in custody until he had been ruled out.
‘That’s why we took the time, in order to allow him the best opportunity to put his life back on the rails,’ he said.
The chaos caused by the illegal drone activity led to the cancellation of 1,000 flights and disruption to the travel plans of 140,000 passengers over three days before Christmas.