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Drones the new passive terrorism tool? 

Via the Oz: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/wo...02aa1986e3

Chaos as drones cause Gatwick Airport closure

JACQUELIN MAGNAY
FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT
@jacquelinmagnay

AN HOUR AGO DECEMBER 21, 2018
57 COMMENTS


Police believe the drone activity, involving at least two drones, is deliberate and are investigating if it is a co-ordinated attack. Picture: iStock

The British government has called in the military to destroy a drone that is being deliberately flown over Gatwick Airport’s runway in what has been called an act of sabotage.

Hundreds of thousands of passengers have been caught up in the unprecedented security and safety breach as Gatwick Airport remains closed.

The Ministry of Defence has confirmed it has sent specialist equipment to Gatwick to try and deal with the drone. Military experts are trying to jam the communications system being used to pilot the drone and could use a laser to try and dismantle it.

More than 18 hours after the drone was first spotted at 9pm Wednesday evening, Gatwick Airport remains closed. Every time the airport gears up to re-open, the drone reappears.

Gatwick chief executive Stewart Wingate says the drone activities are highly targeted and have been designed to close the airport and bring maximum disruption in the run up to Christmas

Nearly 800 flights have been diverted or cancelled from the airport, which is Britain’s second busiest, leaving distraught families trying to get home for Christmas.

Several plane loads of children heading for Lapland have been cancelled.


An information board announces flight disruption at Gatwick Airport. Picture: AFP.

”How do I tell my five year old she isn’t going to see Santa after all,’’ one upset mother said.

The Palmer family told BBC that they had planned a trip to Lapland trip as a surprise for their young children with three generations excited, but have now had to head back home.

Government officials and the police believe the chaos, which has impacted more than 110,000 people, was deliberate and the work of professionals. Previously inadvertent use of drones near British airports — where the unmanned aircraft is flown more than 100m high or within a kilometre of an airfield- is dealt with swiftly and there is little interruption.

However this drone appears to be highly sophisticated and experts have said it could be operated from several hundred kilometres away. Others say it could have been modified to allow it to fly for more than the usual 15 to 20 minutes of battery time.

Sussex police have sighted the drone several times during the day, including just minutes before the airport was due to be reopened at 3pm, but have been unable to get a clear safe shot.

More than 10,000 passengers have been stranded at the airport, unable to board their flights to Europe, America or Asia.

Easy Jet said it was cancelling all flights from Gatwick on Thursday and other airlines were expected to follow suit.

Other airports in Britain have had their night-time curfews lifted to try and ease some of the disruption.

Transport secretary Chris Grayling said: “It’s pretty clear that this is a fairly large drone, not the classic plastic garden drone. “This is a commercial sized drone that is clearly being operated deliberately in a way that when Gatwick tries to reopen the runway the drone reappears, so this is clearly a deliberate act.”

He warned the drone operators that there was a five year jail sentence awaiting and that “anyone who does this should expect to go to jail for many years’’.

He added that there was no suggestion that the action was a terrorist act.

’’It is clearly someone who wants to disrupt Gatwick Airport,’’ he said.


Passengers wait for news at the North Terminal with Gatwick remaining closed. Picture: AFP.

Drones shut down Gatwick Airport

Police were still hunting drones and their operators last night after the Christmas plans of thousands of families were thrown into chaos when Gatwick Airport was forced to close.

The drones had been seen flying near Britain’s second-busiest airport on Wednesday night and yesterday morning, in what some believe could be a deliberate and co-ordinated attack.

The operators face five years in jail, as drones are banned from being flown within a kilometre of the airport boundary. A drone could bring down an aircraft and cause massive loss of life if it is sucked into an engine.

More than 10,000 passengers already have been affected by the plane cancellations and the disruption is set to last for days, raising fears that many families will be unable to get to family Christmas gatherings.

The airport said there would be days of delays even when the airport was reopened, because planes and staff would not be where they were scheduled to be.

When the drones were first spotted on Wednesday night near the Gatwick runway, some passengers were left stranded on planes for up to seven hours. Nearby hotels were full and people slept on the Gatwick terminal floor.

Flights due to arrive in Gatwick were diverted throughout yesterday to other airports including Amsterdam, Paris and Bordeaux. Some flights have made it to Britain­, but landed at Cardiff, Liver­pool, Manchester, Stansted, Luton and Birmingham.

Gatwick chief operating officer Chris Woodroofe said 2000 flights had been grounded.

He said the vast majority of the 110,000 passengers due to pass through Gatwick on Thursday — one of the busiest travel days of the year — would experience disruption.

“We also have the helicopter up in the air but the police advice us that it would be dangerous to seek to shoot the drone down because of what may happen to the stray bullets,’’ he said.

The runway was ­initially closed about 9pm on Wednesday after two reported sightings of drones. It briefly ­reopened at 3am but closed again when the small remote-controlle­d aircraft were spotted above the airfield again.

“We are advising passengers scheduled to fly from Gatwick not to travel to the airport without checking the status of their flight with their airline this morning,’’ Gatwick said in a statement. “We apologise for the inconvenience, but the safety of all passengers and staff is our first priority.”

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