London Gatwick Airport reopens but drone chaos perps still not found
London Gatwick Airport has reopened after closing for more than a day due to a seemingly deliberate drone disruption ploy – but police still haven’t caught the perpetrators.
The errant drones, which are of an unknown make and model according to Sussex Police, were being flown near enough to Gatwick’s runway to trigger a full shutdown of the airport.
A few reasons why cops haven’t immediately shot down London Gatwick airport drone menace
While police eventually did not rule out shooting down the drones, El Reg has a handy guide here to all the immediate answers bubbling up in people’s heads about how to stop the devices. It appears more than one craft was being flown at intervals from different locations, just often enough to keep the airport closed down.
Police reported that they had had 50 sightings of the drones in the last day alone.
Although the airport has been reopened, “mitigations” are now said to be in place in case the errant craft show up again. 120,000 people have had their flights cancelled and the government has reportedly relaxed night-time flight restrictions in other airports, including London Heathrow – the country’s largest – in order to get holidaymakers on their way.
Around 280 police were involved in the search for the culprits. Nobody knows quite why they haven’t been caught yet, though one theory is that they may be environmental rights terrorists. Another possibility is that they could be one or more sacked airport workers with enough inside knowledge to get around planned anti-drone responses.
With new drone laws dragging their way through Parliament for most of this year, we can expect the Drones Bill, and its new restrictions on registration and licensing, to be fast-tracked in January. ®
Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2018/12/21/gatwick_airport_reopens_drones_closure/