Gatwick drone closures

MartijnNL · Thu Dec 20, 2018 9:03 pm

TheFlyingDisk wrote:
I presume this would mean the end for drones?

Why? Flying drones near airports is already forbidden. We 'only' need to find a way to outsmarten the people who do it anyway.

Every year car accidents claim well over 1,000,000 lives worldwide. Still that doesn't mean the end of cars.

airbazar · Thu Dec 20, 2018 9:03 pm

Karlsands wrote:
airbazar wrote:
Spacepope wrote:

Why is it embarrassing? If it is a planned event as it appears to be there really isn't a lot that can be done.
It's a well documented fact that there is no sure method of finding and stopping a drone, especially if dealing with people who know what they are doing.

How isn’t this embarrassing for anyone’s national “security”. Just sit down and think about it. It’s a damn plastic drone man

So? It doesn't mean it's any easier to catch them. How big or expensive were the backpacks used in various terrorist attacks? To use your exact words: It's just a damn cloth backpack man.
Anyone that's shocked that something like this could happen must have been living under a rock for the last 10 years. There's a reason why governments have been trying to legislate drone operations. This time it may be just a disruptive operation by some pissed off individual or group of individuals. Next time it could be much worse.

WaywardMemphian · Thu Dec 20, 2018 9:11 pm

johns624 wrote:
12 gauge. 3.5" shell. Heavy goose loads.

BBB and go for a 10 guage

TC957 · Thu Dec 20, 2018 9:14 pm

max999 wrote:
Just read a report on BBC: a passenger's travel insurance told her drone disruptions are not a covered event. That means she won't be able to file a claim. I predict other passengers will run into the same issue unless they have an expensive full coverage policy (trip cancellation for any reason).

A decent travel insurance policy will protect the holder under the flight cancellation / trip curtailment clause.

fly2k · Thu Dec 20, 2018 9:20 pm

I know it has not been mentioned really as such but in a way this has to be considered economic terrorism. I wonder how much money these last 24 Hours have cost the people affected or the airlines and other entities that will lose money because of this.

cc2314 · Thu Dec 20, 2018 9:38 pm

Isn't this just very very strange.. Somthing is up

Armodeen · Thu Dec 20, 2018 9:41 pm

cc2314 wrote:
Isn't this just very very strange.. Somthing is up

Agree, more to this than meets the eye.

SimProgrammer · Thu Dec 20, 2018 9:43 pm

Question: I'm due in at LGW on Sunday. If I go without checked bags and the flight is diverted, will they let me off the flight at the diversion where I can finish the journey by train?

I have a Schengen passport.

dfdubflyer · Thu Dec 20, 2018 9:49 pm

My mother is due to fly to london tomorrow on Westjet into Gatwick. I have to think if they cancel the flight to LGW then she'd be covered by trip cancellation insurance through her CSP right?

TC957 · Thu Dec 20, 2018 9:51 pm

SimProgrammer wrote:
Question: I'm due in at LGW on Sunday. If I go without checked bags and the flight is diverted, will they let me off the flight at the diversion where I can finish the journey by train?

I have a Schengen passport.

My take on that is if the flight is due to go onto LGW in a relatively short space of known time, you'll be kept on board, so no, can't get off.
If the flight is due to stop there for operational reason (like crew hours, slots, etc ) for an unspecified time then the aircraft will be deplaned and you're good to go.

peterinlisbon · Thu Dec 20, 2018 9:59 pm

UA735WL wrote:
peterinlisbon wrote:
I'm surprised that there is not some kind of technology to bring down such a small thing. Couldn't they just jam whatever frequency it's being controlled on or trace the signals and find the person controlling it?

Time to go get grandpa's trusty 12-gauge!

Does your grandpa want a free trip to the UK?

TC957 · Thu Dec 20, 2018 9:59 pm

Sussex Police have now said use of firearms to bring drones down is now "within our suite of tactical options available going forward "

Revelation · Thu Dec 20, 2018 10:01 pm

TC957 wrote:
Sussex Police have now said use of firearms to bring drones down is now "within our suite of tactical options available going forward "

Wow, and it only took a day to get all the required sign offs.

garf25 · Thu Dec 20, 2018 10:06 pm

There seems to be a lot of slating of the authorities going on here.
This isn't just some clown with a drone. This is someone with an objective. The media hype on this today has been huge, with plenty of talk on sentencing etc. The responsible person is not interested, they keep this going.

There has been a statement that this is not terror related. They do not know this, it could be part of a wider objective completely unrelated to the simple flight of a drone. We just don't know. The next estimate for opening is 0600. If the drone shows up....there are some serious questions to be asked on motive. More worryingly, this could now set president to happen all over the world. Where next?

SCQ83 · Thu Dec 20, 2018 10:07 pm

Galwayman wrote:
FR has moved all of tomorrow’s Gatwick flights to STN , very impressive flexibility

FR does not have a big operation in LGW, but is still nice from their part. Will tomorrow be STN's busiest day ever?

Arion640 · Thu Dec 20, 2018 10:08 pm

Revelation wrote:
TC957 wrote:
Sussex Police have now said use of firearms to bring drones down is now "within our suite of tactical options available going forward "

Wow, and it only took a day to get all the required sign offs.

I very much doubt this was the case.

OA940 · Thu Dec 20, 2018 10:18 pm

Arion640 wrote:
Revelation wrote:
TC957 wrote:
Sussex Police have now said use of firearms to bring drones down is now "within our suite of tactical options available going forward "

Wow, and it only took a day to get all the required sign offs.

I very much doubt this was the case.

Well I mean on one hand considering the potential consequences it can be surprising they got permission so quickly, but then again if you think of how long this has gone on and the urgency of the matter you can imagine why they'd hand the permits out so soon.

Also one has to wonder what the purpose of this really was. At this stage can we assume whoever did this didn't intend to actively hurt people, but just disrupt flights? Did they do it to protest agains the expansion plans? Did they mean to pass on a Black Mirror-esque moral story about drones and planes? It really doesn't make sense

xijiayu · Thu Dec 20, 2018 10:26 pm

Some changes to the regulation may be expected after this incidence, such as, whoever owns a drone in the UK must need to be registered and all drones need to have unique serial numbers for the police to track down the owners, if they manage to bring down the drones in the events like this one.

Kindanew · Thu Dec 20, 2018 10:32 pm

I wonder if the Government will consider legalising radio jamming technology in sensitive locations?

FlyingVan · Thu Dec 20, 2018 10:32 pm

xijiayu wrote:
Some changes to the regulation may be expected after this incidence, such as, whoever owns a drone in the UK must need to be registered and all drones need to have unique serial numbers for the police to track down the owners, if they manage to bring down the drones in the events like this one.

I'm sure the bad guys will trip over themselves to get their drones registered. LOL.

DH106 · Thu Dec 20, 2018 10:37 pm

xijiayu wrote:
Some changes to the regulation may be expected after this incidence, such as, whoever owns a drone in the UK must need to be registered and all drones need to have unique serial numbers for the police to track down the owners, if they manage to bring down the drones in the events like this one.

Yes, and I'm sure these type of perpetrators will be the first to line up for the new regulations <eyes roll>
Laws & regulations are only good for those that will follow them.

alasizon · Thu Dec 20, 2018 10:37 pm

Kindanew wrote:
I wonder if the Government will consider legalising radio jamming technology in sensitive locations?

The problem is many of these drones operate on the 2.4 & 5 Ghz bands, the same bands that WiFi and almost all other consumer wireless technology. There is no easy way of targeting just the drones.

Bhoy · Thu Dec 20, 2018 10:43 pm

Dfthu wrote:
The problems at Gatwick have moved the Department for Transport to temporarily change the rules governing night flights to relive congestion. As a American I don't really know what that means but that sounds important.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/liv ... b91ff06d67

You don't really know what that means? 'Temporarily change the rules to avoid congestion' = suspend the night curfew, enabling 24/7 operation once the runway is operational to deal with the backlog.

Arion640 · Thu Dec 20, 2018 10:57 pm

garf25 wrote:
varig_dc10 wrote:
eicvd wrote:
[url][/url]
I know what’s up.....

A few drones.....

I’ve not seen any photos of the drone in the media.

Are drones being used as a cover story for something else?

If that's the case, it's confined to Gatters. UK airspace is still open.

There was one video doing the rounds taken from an aircraft window, although it may of been a helicopter searching the airfield for the drone.

I hope there hasn’t been any red tape hold ups. It’s been going on a while now. BA’s Gatwick based 777 fleet are all seriously of position, there’s 4 at Cardiff, 1 at Newcastle another at Amsterdam and a few in Heathrow.

TWA902fly · Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:00 pm

To whoever said it was a cover-up... I assume the powers at be could find some actual drones to make their cover-up more believable?

'902

Viper911 · Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:08 pm

So UKs second biggest airport is closed for over 24hrs, due to some alleged drones that yet to be seen on any video, at the same time we posses the tech to deal with them, you can actually buy a plethora of drone radio jammers on a civilian market for crying out loud, yet you want to tell me that local authorities and the military cannot deal with this issue for over a day?! what the hell is going on, this is ridiculous.

Viper911

ZaphodHarkonnen · Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:08 pm

I expect major airports around the world and governments will now be exploring installation of high accuracy short range radar and some sort of directed energy weapons. If only so they can quickly tell if a drone is flying or not.

The directed energy weapon being anything from a control signal jammer up to high energy lasers to down the drones.

But in the UK at least I expect nothing much to change in the near to medium term as even with this disruption, all the energy and focus is on Brexit.

garf25 · Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:14 pm

Ezy 320 taxiing round the rwy st the moment.....

TWA902fly · Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:24 pm

garf25 wrote:
Ezy 320 taxiing round the rwy st the moment.....

It appears to have done a couple laps and is now back parked in its original starting location. Strange.

'902

blackbird1 · Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:24 pm

garf25 wrote:
Ezy 320 taxiing round the rwy st the moment.....

yes, returning to gate now, G-EZUP, FR shows it as LGW to LTN...was it a taxi check?

GDB · Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:29 pm

Viper911 wrote:
So UKs second biggest airport is closed for over 24hrs, due to some alleged drones that yet to be seen on any video, at the same time we posses the tech to deal with them, you can actually buy a plethora of drone radio jammers on a civilian market for crying out loud, yet you want to tell me that local authorities and the military cannot deal with this issue for over a day?! what the hell is going on, this is ridiculous.

Viper911

Sure it's as easy as that? No repercussions from jamming? Like interfering with other, potentially important systems/communications?
Assuming such devices are actually available over the counter in the UK (I don't know either way).
Or maybe the focus is on tracking and eventually finding the drones and their operators, which I suspect is what the military have been deployed to do.

If they are jammed one day, what is to stop them appearing the next? Maybe at another busy airport, their very availability, lack of cost, portability is their advantage, so I suspect the authorities are going for catching those responsible rather than a quick fix for today, which might not even work and have other consequences.

Kindanew · Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:34 pm

Viper911 wrote:
So UKs second biggest airport is closed for over 24hrs, due to some alleged drones that yet to be seen on any video, at the same time we posses the tech to deal with them, you can actually buy a plethora of drone radio jammers on a civilian market for crying out loud, yet you want to tell me that local authorities and the military cannot deal with this issue for over a day?! what the hell is going on, this is ridiculous.

Viper911

Radio jammers are illegal in the UK.

sevenair · Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:40 pm

The fact that they are sticking to Gatwick must mean something. Are they locals? I’m not sure given how densely populated the area is there it’s not as if you can launch from your balcony or garden without people noticing. I have a drone and it’s noisy. The last time I used it the neighbors came to their window to see what it was.

If they’re not tied to the Gatwick area then why not move to Heathrow? The ramifications would be even bigger.

ak · Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:41 pm

Kindanew wrote:
Viper911 wrote:
So UKs second biggest airport is closed for over 24hrs, due to some alleged drones that yet to be seen on any video, at the same time we posses the tech to deal with them, you can actually buy a plethora of drone radio jammers on a civilian market for crying out loud, yet you want to tell me that local authorities and the military cannot deal with this issue for over a day?! what the hell is going on, this is ridiculous.

Viper911

Radio jammers are illegal in the UK.

Your military more than likely have jamming capabilities that are directional.

THS214 · Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:42 pm

MartijnNL wrote:
marcelh wrote:
Can’t they shoot the things with an AH64?

eric19 wrote:
No no, that's so dangerous where have people's homes not far from the airfield. Then you have to clean in the debris and it's expensive to use an army helicopter just to shoot one or two drones.

Deploying an Apache helicopter would be so much less expensive than cancelling 700 flights.

I'm sure that apache can shoot down all drones in the area but what about collateral damage? As I already wrote, officials already know. Now they are gathering evidence. This christmas season at Gatwick is lost so make sure that this won't happen again.

georgiabill · Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:47 pm

I quess I would ask why no one has reported anything to the authorities. Likely they would need open space to conduct their flights from. No body observed anything unusual? Not all that experienced with drone operation capabilities but how close would they have been to LGW to conduct their operations?

Kindanew · Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:49 pm

ak wrote:
Kindanew wrote:
Viper911 wrote:
So UKs second biggest airport is closed for over 24hrs, due to some alleged drones that yet to be seen on any video, at the same time we posses the tech to deal with them, you can actually buy a plethora of drone radio jammers on a civilian market for crying out loud, yet you want to tell me that local authorities and the military cannot deal with this issue for over a day?! what the hell is going on, this is ridiculous.

Viper911

Radio jammers are illegal in the UK.

Your military more than likely have jamming capabilities that are directional.

Maybe they do but it would probably still be illegal for them to be used within the UK.

THS214 · Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:50 pm

MartijnNL wrote:
TheFlyingDisk wrote:
I presume this would mean the end for drones?

Why? Flying drones near airports is already forbidden. We 'only' need to find a way to outsmarten the people who do it anyway.

Unfortunately good guys are always behind if we want to have an open society.

THS214 · Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:56 pm

Revelation wrote:
TC957 wrote:
Sussex Police have now said use of firearms to bring drones down is now "within our suite of tactical options available going forward "

Wow, and it only took a day to get all the required sign offs.

Well, in Europe we don't shoot everything no matter what. A lot of people live because of that. UK police has done it right.

Do you really think that UK police has not consulted intelligence army etc.?

A lot happens behind the scenes that we will never know.

Revelation · Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:57 pm

Viper911 wrote:
So UKs second biggest airport is closed for over 24hrs, due to some alleged drones that yet to be seen on any video, at the same time we posses the tech to deal with them, you can actually buy a plethora of drone radio jammers on a civilian market for crying out loud, yet you want to tell me that local authorities and the military cannot deal with this issue for over a day?! what the hell is going on, this is ridiculous.

I'm not sure what role radio jamming would play, especially since we suspect more than one drone is involved. How do we know we've got all of them? How do we know they won't reappear once jamming is off? How do we know we can keep jamming on without interfering with other vital communications?

ZaphodHarkonnen wrote:
I expect major airports around the world and governments will now be exploring installation of high accuracy short range radar and some sort of directed energy weapons. If only so they can quickly tell if a drone is flying or not.

The directed energy weapon being anything from a control signal jammer up to high energy lasers to down the drones.

But in the UK at least I expect nothing much to change in the near to medium term as even with this disruption, all the energy and focus is on Brexit.

That's funny, since in another thread in tech-ops it is being pointed out that much of ATC to ground communications happens using ~80 year old VHF AM technology that no one can be arsed to replace.

Kindanew · Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:57 pm

DH106 wrote:

Yes, and I'm sure these type of perpetrators will be the first to line up for the new regulations <eyes roll>
Laws & regulations are only good for those that will follow them.

Well we might as well abolish all laws and regulations then since criminals don’t follow them.

SuseJ772 · Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:57 pm

I still can’t get over this. This is so strange. I really do wonder what more is going on here than meets the eye.

Also a little surprised the American media isn’t making a bigger deal of this.

SuperGee · Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:57 pm

blooc350 wrote:
Only a matter of time before Drones are used as a tool for terrorism.

It's already happened. In case anyone thinks that drones can't be that harmful:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/17/1770 ... las-maduro

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/04/worl ... -says.html

THS214 · Fri Dec 21, 2018 12:06 am

blackbird1 wrote:
garf25 wrote:
Ezy 320 taxiing round the rwy st the moment.....

yes, returning to gate now, G-EZUP, FR shows it as LGW to LTN...was it a taxi check?

Most likely a taxi for "takeoff" to get drones in the air.

THS214 · Fri Dec 21, 2018 12:14 am

SuseJ772 wrote:
I still can’t get over this. This is so strange. I really do wonder what more is going on here than meets the eye.

A lot happens behind the scenes. As its not public means that a lot can not make public.

At this time a lot of countries intelligence are informing UK. 99% of that is something that we never hear.

BaconButty · Fri Dec 21, 2018 12:25 am

Some more details off wikipedia.

A3801000 · Fri Dec 21, 2018 12:37 am

I found some photos of the stuff being used by police/military? Maybe somebody can tell us what we are looking at?

Source: https://twitter.com/brightonsnapper

YoungDon · Fri Dec 21, 2018 12:38 am

BaconButty wrote:
Some more details off wikipedia.

Funniest thing I've seen all day lol

UltimoTiger777 · Fri Dec 21, 2018 12:45 am

georgiabill wrote:
I quess I would ask why no one has reported anything to the authorities. Likely they would need open space to conduct their flights from. No body observed anything unusual? Not all that experienced with drone operation capabilities but how close would they have been to LGW to conduct their operations?

I saw one person saying that with the right technology, the person(s) behind this could even be outside the UK while operating the drones in question.

AtomicGarden · Fri Dec 21, 2018 12:46 am

BaconButty wrote:
Some more details off wikipedia.

I'm laughing so hard right now!!!

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