London Gatwick closed for +24 hours after drone activity around the airfield

[luchtzak]

London Gatwick, UK's second biggest airports was forced to close down after drone activity was spotted. Yesterday evening was the first sighting, this morning the airport is still closed. Many aircraft diverting, while other aircraft are unable to depart.

https://www.aviation24.be/airports/lond ... n-gatwick/

[luchtzak]

Airport still closed .... a web site is talking about "planned sabotage".

[DIBO]

This is clearly organised, not just a kid playing with a new toy. Which extremists are behind this, remains to be seen. My guess is that it is inspired by some environmental ideology. Terrorists would not be satisfied with causing some economical impact, not worse than a snow storm, that will be forgotten by the general public in a weeks time.

[luchtzak]

“All flights remain suspended from Gatwick today, due to ongoing drone activity around the airfield. There is significant disruption, as a result of what appears to be a deliberate attempt to disrupt flights. Please do not travel to the airport without checking the status of your flight with your airline first. We apologise to everyone affected, but the safety of all our passengers and staff is our no.1 priority,” the airport said in a statement.

https://www.aviation24.be/airports/lond ... t-flights/

[jan_olieslagers]

Brexit will solve all that, of course. Only 98 days to go.

[luchtzak]

Closed until 17:00 (UTC)

[luchtzak]

Eurocontrol: airfield unavailable until 18:00 (UTC)

[luchtzak]

Eurocontrol: airfield unavailable until 18:00 (UTC)

19:00

[Acid-drop]

What a joke
If it only takes a few kids to paralize one or 25 airports, then what ?
How can they make sure it will not happen again tomorrow ?

[jan_olieslagers]

This was not "a few kids", I'm afraid. But there's no promises or guarantees for tomorrow, indeed, neither for next week.

[luchtzak]

Apparently they want to catch the culprit(s) as they fear the drone(s) will go up again this evening, or tomorrow.

If caught, can airlines and passengers claim back the lost money? In this case, it will cost him/her/them a lot of money!

[pitrixplanespotting]

Apparently they want to catch the culprit(s) as they fear the drone(s) will go up again this evening, or tomorrow.

If caught, can airlines and passengers claim back the lost money? In this case, it will cost him/her/them a lot of money!

If they can find the culprits (what is very unlikely, as the police won't be ready with drones to follow the culprits drones, I guess), the culprits won't have millions to compensate...

[luchtzak]

Now ... 20:00 UTC

[convair]

Its high time strong regulations and drastic actions be taken before something really tragic happens.
We shouldn't exclude a total ban on sales of drones, except for official use, imho.

[jan_olieslagers]

A total ban would be difficult, after professional users spent quite some money and quite some effort on obtaining a license. As for them little toy thingies, yes they should be severely limited, but it seems hard to implement.

[luchtzak]

Closed through 22:00 UTC !!!

[luchtzak]

Message from Gatwick’s CEO.

“On behalf of everyone at Gatwick I would like to repeat how sorry we are for the inconvenience this criminal behaviour has caused passengers and we share their real anger and frustration that it has happened. This is a highly targeted activity which has been designed to close the airport and bring maximum disruption in the run up to Christmas. We are working very closely with the police and the security services to try to resolve this for passengers.

“We hope passengers appreciate that we must and will always prioritise their safety over everything else. We are all working flat out to minimise inconvenience and have additional staff in both terminals assisting passengers who are waiting. Regrettably we are still not in a position to say when it will be safe to reopen the airport. As soon as we can we will.

“To recap the facts. We first had reports of two drones flying in and around the airfield at 21:03 last night. As a result, we took immediate steps to close the runway in accordance with our airport safety protocols. We obviously wanted to be in a position to reopen the airport again as quickly as possible. We are still receiving drone sightings in and around the Gatwick airfield. Therefore, until we are confident that the issue has been resolved it would clearly not be in the interests of passengers to do so as we could be jeopardising their safety.

“So regrettably, for the time being, the airport will remain closed as a result of this criminal activity. While some airlines have cancelled all flights up to 7pm tonight, we would encourage all passengers to check the latest information on their flights directly with their airline or on the Gatwick website.

“We are working hard with both the police and Government agencies as we seek to resolve this situation. We know that everyone, including Government, appreciates the severity of the situation and are very grateful for the active role that the police are taking to try and resolve this. We all recognise the urgent need to take the necessary steps that can lead to services getting back to normal as quickly as possible.

“Although not for today, these events obviously highlight a wider strategic challenge for aviation in this country which we need to address together with speed - the aviation industry, Government and all the other relevant authorities. 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.

“In the meantime all our focus is on sorting the current challenge and getting services back to normal for passengers. At the moment, I am not in a position to say with certainty when that might be but everyone is doing whatever they can to help make that happen.”

[convair]

A total ban would be difficult, after professional users spent quite some money and quite some effort on obtaining a license. As for them little toy thingies, yes they should be severely limited, but it seems hard to implement.

I agree with you re the professionnal users, but strictly regulated, like small planes and ULMs, as I believe you know better than I do. I was referring to the toys that are already a nuisance ad will probably get worse in the future if nothing is done.

[KriVa]

From what I’ve read elsewhere, the UAVs in question here seem far from toys. There have been reports of 7+ UAVs in the air around EGKK simultaneously, some reports even mentioned “petrol powered” UAVs.
This is a delibarate act to bring one of the UK’s biggest airports to a standstill, not some kid with a toy not knowing any better.
As such, regulating this would be far, far more difficult than just writing some legislation and calling it a day.

[luchtzak]

Euhhhh: Sky News Breaking Twitter @SkyNewsBreak

A Gatwick Airport spokesperson says passengers should not come to the airport "for the foreseeable future including tomorrow"