Drone alert delays flights at Heathrow
A FLIGHT was delayed at Heathrow Airport after a drone was flown over one of its runways.
The departure runway was closed for seven minutes between 12.45 and 12.52pm on January 1, delaying at least one flight, after a drone was spotted flying in its air space.
Aimee Fuller, a member of the British Olympic snowboarding team, wrote on Twitter: “Onboard! At Heathrow when the flight gets delayed due to a ‘likely Christmas present’, a drone flying over the runway!”
A Heathrow spokesman said: “The departure runway was closed for seven minutes. It didn’t cause significant disruption.”
Drones proved to be one of the must-have toys this Christmas, with thousands sold by retailers, but police and safety bodies have warned they pose a potential danger to passers-by and other modes of transport.
Last month police revealed that a drone had come close to hitting aircraft landing at Southampton Airport in July. Hampshire police said they received more than 46 reports of drone incidents in the county alone last year.
In November, an 18-monthold boy lost an eye after being hit by a drone flown by a family friend. Oscar Webb, from Strourport-on-Severn, Worcs, had his eye sliced in half by a propeller.
The Heathrow incident took place as a new poll on the airport’s expansion showed that support has grown among MPs for a new runway. The first survey of MPs’ opinions since the publication of the Airports Commission report, which recommended the expansion of Heathrow, found cross-party support for the move. It said 68 per cent of Conservative and 66 per cent of Labour MPs support expansion.
Nine out of 10 MPs accept the need for an expansion in airport capacity in the south east. But only a third say expansion should take place at Gatwick, which had campaigned to be allowed to build a second runway.
Heathrow said while the Comres poll showed that a second runway at Gatwick maintains support, a third runway at Heathrow has more consistent support and more support overall – particularly among English MPs outside London.
Among northern MPs, support for a second runway at Gatwick (32 per cent) is less than half of that for a third runway at Heathrow (76 per cent). A majority also disagreed that an additional runway at Heathrow would prevent the UK from meeting its emissions targets. This was echoed by the Airports Commission, which felt a third runway could go ahead without breaching environmental limits.
However, a Gatwick spokesperson said: “For the first time there is a real alternative, Gatwick expansion is deliverable within 10 years of a decision and would provide the country the economic benefit it needs at a dramatically lower environmental cost.”