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Gatwick Airport Closed After Drone Sightings
- Thread starter IanSR
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Stuie
TS Member
That is the best thing I’ve seen on the internet this month!
Rob
TS Team
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The runway re-opened this morning but the drone is still at large and the operator has not been traced. Something clearly needs to be done to stop this happening again in the future; whether that be stricter regulation of drones, better measures to take drones out of the sky or a combination of both.
I would not be surprised if the drone makes a re-appearance again in the near future.
I would not be surprised if the drone makes a re-appearance again in the near future.
The laws are already very strict, tightening them up more will not prevent this from happening, extending the exclusion zone will not stop this happening, making pilots register (which is already happening) will not stop this happening, in theory, this should never have happened with the existing laws and restrictions in place, but it did because you cannot legislate against stupidity or people intent on doing something.
There are already adequate measures available to down the drone, maybe if the airport themselves had not ignored advice given to them THREE years ago this could probably gave been avoided, there are two companies on the Manor Royal estate alone that specialise in anti-drone technology, management could literally walked across the road and asked for help, but they didn't.
I do agree the drone will be back, but hopeful it will be at Heathrow or Stanstead just to prove how pathetic the preperations were for this threat that they've known about for the last 50 years have been (people have been flying models around here for nearly 60 yea, since before the airport even existed).
There are already adequate measures available to down the drone, maybe if the airport themselves had not ignored advice given to them THREE years ago this could probably gave been avoided, there are two companies on the Manor Royal estate alone that specialise in anti-drone technology, management could literally walked across the road and asked for help, but they didn't.
I do agree the drone will be back, but hopeful it will be at Heathrow or Stanstead just to prove how pathetic the preperations were for this threat that they've known about for the last 50 years have been (people have been flying models around here for nearly 60 yea, since before the airport even existed).
RicketyCricket
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It's almost the perfect crime. The person controlling this is completely untraceable. Amazing to think there's a bloke somewhere with his curtains shut, controller in hand, watching the news and pissing himself laughing at others misfortune.
pluk
TS Member
People shouldn't have such strong opinions about live incidents and how to deal with them that they can only have very limited information about. It makes them look silly.
The authorities don't shut things down like this for fun. There will be a lot of information and intelligence that is quite rightly not shared with the general public.
The authorities don't shut things down like this for fun. There will be a lot of information and intelligence that is quite rightly not shared with the general public.
Yeah right, until the Police spoke to a random FPV racer who'd gone down to the end of the runway with his equipment to see if he could pick up a signal, they didn't even know what frequency the person could have been using to relay the video back to themselves, and most of them didn't understand what was going on, they assumed the operator was inside the airport at one point.
I know your a copper and have the greatest respect for most but take the blinkers off for a second, your colleagues in the Sussex force once again exhibited their incompetence just like the last time they encountered a drone when instead of asking the pilot to land it, they rugby tackled the operator to the ground and caused his octocopter to crash into a house.
There was fifty different ways they could have taken that drone down yesterday, bring in some members of local clubs to kamakazi it into the ground (there are plenty FPV pilots living in the surrounding area who have the skill to bring it down, would have loved to have been given the opportunity, are as pissed off as the rest of the country about it and most wouldn't even need a day off school since they've broken up already) use rubber bullets, use the airports own water cannons on it, bring in a couple of long range wings from the local club to follow it home, I have two on the shelf right now ready go, but nobody has asked, I could go on and on, even chase the thing with your helicopter instead of landing it because a drone has entered its airspace. A simple phone call to the BMFA and ask if they had any experienced pilots living locally who could help, would have given them a list of over 400 people all within two miles of the airport, many of which are commercial pilots themselves and many of them would have, including me, been quiet happy to try and take this thing down had we been asked, or even given some advise about its potential origins, or even the simplest solution, why didn't they walk across the road to Manor Royal Indistrial Estate and knock on the door of one of the two anti-drone tech companies based there, in fact I believe one even did offer to help, and was told no thanks we've got this under control.
Maybe the airport should have called in Cambridge Police instead of Sussex, at least they didn't let a drone scare them out of the sky and followed the thing home from a safe distance and directed ground forces to where the operator was, all within the space of 15 minutes, arrested him and successfully prosecuted him all without breaking a sweat or bringing the local airspace to a halt.
Or maybe, just maybe, had the airport themselves listened to the advise they were given three years ago, instead of ignoring it, then we wouldn't even be talking about this at all.
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It's reopened, it was just an angry crow. The problem with Gatwick is isn't was built on marshland that today would probably be designated an area of outstanding natural beauty or nature reserve, so whenever the flights stop, the birds migrate back in, the same thing happened when the volcano grounded air traffic, the airport was besieged with wildlife while it was shut.
If the airport is bought to its knees by a single drone probably doing a publicity stunt that got out of hand, I dare not think what would happen is someone really wanted to do a co-ordinated shutdown of the countries air traffic, my goodness it would only take half a dozen people to bring this country to its knees - now that's utter lunacy lol.
BarryZola
TS Member
The thing is, to my feeble understanding, it's pretty much possible for a drone to enter airspace where an aeroplane may be flying anywhere in the country if an operator really wants to do it, so if the danger of that possibility is enough to shut down an airport for pretty much a couple of days, shouldn't all flights be cancelled now until they've stopped anyone from possibly flying a drone in the whole of the UK? I mean, whilst people can fly drones, there's always 0.0000000.....something chance that a drone could collide with an aeroplane and bring it down. Safety first and all that. I'm obviously playing devil's advocate here but I don't see how the people making decisions here can justify ruining the trips of thousands of people one day but then on another day where there is also a very slim chance of a drone hitting an aeroplane they say it's ok to put people on planes back in the air. Unless they did actually have some credible information about an attack or something which they havn't let on about (which I don't believe, but obviously have no way of knowing either way). Or maybe big boy at the airport doesn't get paid enough to make the decision to put flights back on, so wanted someone in government/law enforcement to do it for him? I hope that sort of makes sense, a bit.
My initial opinion was Gatwick's moronic COO was too scared to give the order to reopen the runway and wanted to shift the responsibility up the food chain to someone in real authority. This is the same guy whose logic dictated moving a bus lane 75 feet from a B road to an A road would thwart a terrorist attack so it's no suprise tbh.
You are completely correct @BarryZola, I have enough equipment sitting not 6 foot from me to do everything you describe many times over, but my own self control stops me doing it, my favourite flying site is some wasteland that is popular with dog walkers which is about 2km from a small airfield, we share the space ok, only ever had one problem, but I don't need regulations to tell me what I can and can't do, I have the self control to know right from wrong, it wouldn't matter if there was a hundred mile exclusion zone around Gatwick, it still would not stop what happened.
You are completely correct @BarryZola, I have enough equipment sitting not 6 foot from me to do everything you describe many times over, but my own self control stops me doing it, my favourite flying site is some wasteland that is popular with dog walkers which is about 2km from a small airfield, we share the space ok, only ever had one problem, but I don't need regulations to tell me what I can and can't do, I have the self control to know right from wrong, it wouldn't matter if there was a hundred mile exclusion zone around Gatwick, it still would not stop what happened.
pluk
TS Member
I'm not the blinkered one here. I'm sure your anecdotal points are exactly what has happened...
I'm sure the person supposedly spoken to 'at the end of the runway' was the incident commander (in receipt of all the information) and not just someone on scene guard (in receipt of no information beyond stand here, don't let anyone pass) and their lack of knowledge was representative of the whole operation. There is a structure of command, a lot of information will be need to know. If you spend all your time disseminating all your information to everyone you'd never get anything done. I've been involved in major incidents, I've been doing something somewhere as directed with no idea what else is going on beyond my bit. As a sergeant I often know a lot more restricted information than my PC's, and you can bet my Inspector knows a lot more than me. That's how it works, and it does work.
I'm sure there were no experts consulted. They didn't ask your preferred expert, club, bloke over the road, or you yourself? Must be no-one then. As you alluded to, you ask 50 people you get 50 ideas, and that would just be unhelpful noise. There are all sorts of protocols and procedures in place for any given set of circumstances, especially with something like an airport. You can be certain the people involved in this inside and outside of the police will have been considered expert, and they had all the information available. Unlike you.
No one in the police thinks they know everything, the work is too diverse for it to be any realistic possibility. Hell, we don't individually even know all of the laws (shock), no one can, there's thousands of them! No two incidents are the same, there can not be a definitive catch all 'that's what to do' manual, but there is an operating procedure for any foreseeable event to be worked through, and it certainly would have been in this case here.
Hindsight policing is a piece of p**s. Anyone can do it. There's no risk, there's no time pressure, the outcome is already known. There is no perfect response to any incident, there's always room for improvement and the police are acutely aware of that, but armchair experts decreeing that everything is wrong in real time based on the couple of lines of information the police have decided to make public is just stupidity.
If they're so dam good at their jobs, why didn't they find the pilot?
It's got nothing to do with Policing hindsight, if you don't know what your dealing with talk to people who do, do you seriously think the local clubs don't talk to each other? We know nobody was asked, because your colleagues knew how to handle the situation so well and told anybody who offered to help thanks but no thanks.
Some clubs even have so called "combat" competitions which is exactly what it sounds, pilots go up and try to take each other out without crashing themselves, it's a particular skill set and some guys are fucking good at it, instead of following your protocols and procedures in your ivory tower, make a phone call and ask for help, seeing your colleagues running round the airfield like something out of a Benny Hill sketch was nothing short of pathetic by all accounts, instead once it became obvious the problem wasn't going to go away the "commander" should have said bring all the local FPV pilots down and tell them to down it at all costs, given how long most combat compos last for, they could have had the runway open again inside an hour.
There's only one person here with rose tinted blinkers on and it ain't me, face it your colleagues along with most of the country were made to look like clowns this week by a single drone, imagine what would happen if someone really wanted to cause air traffic chaos, it would only take half a dozen well organised people to bring the country to its knees.
Next time this happens, put a call in to FPVUK or the BMFA and ask for help before you're made to look even more incompetent, because these idiots piss us off just as much as they do you and we want them downed as much as you do, if you asked 50 random strangers what to do yes you'd get 50 different answers, but if you asked 50 radio control pilots what to do, you'd only get one answer, bring it down with another drone or plane.
Oops, forgot to quote so I'll tag @pluk instead, as I said, let us help instead of vilifying us next time, Gatwick is a big place, I'm sure there wouldn't be much risk to those outside the airport and there would be a queue of drone and fixed wing pilots willing to help if asked.
But as I said before, if the airport had listened to the advise they were given three years ago instead of ignoring it, then this incident probably wouldn't have been as serious as it was and your colleagues wouldn't have been made to look incompetent, this isn't a poke at you, I'm sure you're very good at your job, but that chief constable of Sussex barely looks old enough to have any life experience let alone enough wisdom to know sometimes it's best to just admit you don't know what to do and ask for help from others.
It's got nothing to do with Policing hindsight, if you don't know what your dealing with talk to people who do, do you seriously think the local clubs don't talk to each other? We know nobody was asked, because your colleagues knew how to handle the situation so well and told anybody who offered to help thanks but no thanks.
Some clubs even have so called "combat" competitions which is exactly what it sounds, pilots go up and try to take each other out without crashing themselves, it's a particular skill set and some guys are fucking good at it, instead of following your protocols and procedures in your ivory tower, make a phone call and ask for help, seeing your colleagues running round the airfield like something out of a Benny Hill sketch was nothing short of pathetic by all accounts, instead once it became obvious the problem wasn't going to go away the "commander" should have said bring all the local FPV pilots down and tell them to down it at all costs, given how long most combat compos last for, they could have had the runway open again inside an hour.
There's only one person here with rose tinted blinkers on and it ain't me, face it your colleagues along with most of the country were made to look like clowns this week by a single drone, imagine what would happen if someone really wanted to cause air traffic chaos, it would only take half a dozen well organised people to bring the country to its knees.
Next time this happens, put a call in to FPVUK or the BMFA and ask for help before you're made to look even more incompetent, because these idiots piss us off just as much as they do you and we want them downed as much as you do, if you asked 50 random strangers what to do yes you'd get 50 different answers, but if you asked 50 radio control pilots what to do, you'd only get one answer, bring it down with another drone or plane.
Oops, forgot to quote so I'll tag @pluk instead, as I said, let us help instead of vilifying us next time, Gatwick is a big place, I'm sure there wouldn't be much risk to those outside the airport and there would be a queue of drone and fixed wing pilots willing to help if asked.
But as I said before, if the airport had listened to the advise they were given three years ago instead of ignoring it, then this incident probably wouldn't have been as serious as it was and your colleagues wouldn't have been made to look incompetent, this isn't a poke at you, I'm sure you're very good at your job, but that chief constable of Sussex barely looks old enough to have any life experience let alone enough wisdom to know sometimes it's best to just admit you don't know what to do and ask for help from others.
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RicketyCricket
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Surely it would make more sense to shoot it down rather than start an aerial edition of Robot Wars?
The problem with shooting it down is Gatwick is a big place, it's over a mile from one end to the other, plus you have a problem of where the bullet might end up if it misses, assuming you use real ones and not rubber but they don't go as far (I think), I can fully understand why they didn't want to do that.
Some race or freestyle drones can do 150mph and cover a mile in just a few seconds, a skilled FPV pilot would be able to get from the terminal to the end of the runway and take the drone out before the other drone pilot even realised he was a target.
Plus if as many of us suspect, the drone was being operated in waypoint mode, it would be even easier to hit.
Some race or freestyle drones can do 150mph and cover a mile in just a few seconds, a skilled FPV pilot would be able to get from the terminal to the end of the runway and take the drone out before the other drone pilot even realised he was a target.
Plus if as many of us suspect, the drone was being operated in waypoint mode, it would be even easier to hit.
pluk
TS Member
I could have done it like this. The commander should have done that. What nonsense. It's like you've not even read my reply so it's hardly worth bothering, but for the hard of understanding...
-They will have spoken to experts outside of policing. As I said, part of the procedures will be to call in expert help. You don't call local clubs for open attempts at assisting, that's like something out of a crap movie. You'd have no idea about the suitability of those you were inviting and could easily have made the situation worse, and certainly interfered with evidence gathering. Those they have spoken to and taken advice from (and disclosed details to) will almost certainly be under a secrecy agreement of some sort. So you won't know about it.
- Some tactics to disrupt, intercept and identify suspects will have happened. They may have been partly effective, or ineffective, but that would be sensitive information. So you won't know about it.
- What has been done may have stopped something far worse. But you wouldn't know about it.
Clearly it would have been better to be able to resolve it sooner, but they didn't. It would of course have been the polices fault if they'd played it another way and a plane fell out the sky. That's the reality of the decision making at steak. Not so easy then is it, when there's hundreds of dead people with your name on them?
There's no rose tinted from me, I did not comment in the effectiveness of the operation. For damn good reason. I don't know about it. Just like you.