Married couple arrested in probe of airport drones

LONDON — British authorities have arrested a married couple on suspicion of wreaking havoc with a drone at Gatwick Airport, forcing hundreds of planes to be grounded or diverted and delaying tens of thousands of holiday travelers. Henry Smith, a member of Parliament whose constituency includes Gatwick, said law officers identified the two as Paul Gait, 47, and his wife Elaine Kirk, 54. Police said they had detained a man and a woman of the same ages Friday night, but they did not name them. They are from Crawley, a town just south of the airport.

The couple are suspected of disrupting civil aviation services and endangering people or operations — offenses that carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, according to police. They have not been formally charged and are still in custody.

The incident exposed the vulnerabilities of the airport to outside interference and drew attention to the limitations of security officials responding to such a threat at a peak travel time. Gatwick is Britain’s second-largest air travel hub.

On Thursday, Assistant Chief Constable Steve Barry of the Sussex police where the airport is located, said the drones appeared to be a “deliberate act to endanger the airfield and aircraft.” But police said this did not appear to be linked to terrorism.

The drone sightings had forced the cancellation or diversion of more than 1,000 flights over three days, affecting some 140,000 people, officials said. On Saturday, Gatwick warned passengers to expect still more delays and cancellations.

Posts on Gait’s Facebook page suggest he is a drone hobbyist, and they include several photos of remote controlled helicopters. Smith, the member of Parliament, said that information raised the prospect that someone who flew drones for fun was able to breach the airport’s security and ground flights for more than 24 hours. But he cautioned that Gait and Kirk were still only suspects at this point.

Palko Karasz and Benjamin Mueller are New York Times writers.

Zakaria Abdelkafi / AFP / Getty Images Protesters march near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Police said the number of protesters in the city has fallen in recent days.

Gareth Fuller / Press Association Passengers line up at Gatwick as the airport works to clear a backlog of flights delayed by drone incursions that began Wednesday evening. A married couple have been arrested.