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Gatwick Airport Reopens After Drone Incursion Gatwick Airport Reopens After Drone-Related Disruption
(about 2 hours later)
Gatwick Airport, London’s second-largest air hub, cautiously reopened its runway to air traffic on Friday, more than 24 hours after a drone first buzzed the tarmac, bringing flights to a standstill and stranding thousands of passengers in the days before Christmas. Gatwick Airport, London’s second-largest air hub, reopened early Friday after being shut for nearly 36 hours amid multiple sightings of drones flying illegally in the runway area, in what officials described as a “deliberate act” meant to disrupt air travel that did just that for 120,000 stranded passengers.
“Gatwick’s runway is currently available and a limited number of aircraft are scheduled for departure and arrival,” the airport said on its website. As the authorities continuing to hunt for the culprit, or culprits, behind the incursions, airport officials said the 700 arrivals and departures scheduled for Friday were not likely to go as planned. As of about 8:30 a.m., 100 flights had been canceled.
But delays were still expected at the airport, with one airline, easyJet, warning passengers that “the number of departures and landings will be restricted.” Chris Woodroofe, chief operating officer for Gatwick Airport, told the BBC on Friday that the airport was taking extra steps to protect air travel.
At least 800 flights were canceled, disrupting traffic throughout Europe and affecting upward of 100,000 passengers. Arriving flights carrying 10,000 passengers were diverted, with some travelers forced to land at airports as far away as Paris. “We have been working overnight with the police, with a number of government agencies and with the military to put in place additional mitigating measures,” he said, declining to provide details.
The Gatwick Police were combing through the hundreds of tips they have received since Thursday, focusing their investigation on the still unknown “identity or location of the #drone operator,” they said on Twitter. The shutdown — which, except for one 45-minute stretch, ran from 9 p.m. Wednesday until 6 a.m. Friday — scrambled hundreds of flights, stranded tens of thousands of passengers and reduced the British government to playing cat-and-mouse with the rogue drones.
Airport staff members first spotted a pair of drones flying over the perimeter fence and into the runway area around 9 p.m. Wednesday. About 20 police units searched the perimeter of the airfield on Thursday for the devices’ operators. By nightfall, the government said it would deploy the military in a bid to reopen the airport, although it was not clear what role it would play.
The drones appeared again on Thursday morning, and the police searched the perimeter of the airfield for the drones’ operators. By nightfall, the government said it would deploy the military, but the authorities were reluctant to try to shoot down the aircraft because of the danger posed by stray bullets. The episode was proving not only a humiliation for aviation officials but also the starkest evidence to date of how vulnerable airports across the world are to the readily available flying devices.
The police, who said there were 50 reports of drone sightings on Thursday, though some were duplicates or unconfirmed, said there were “no indications to suggest this is terror related.” “Over 90 percent of airports in the world are unprepared for drones,” said Tim Bean, the founder and chief executive of Fortem Technologies, which is testing a drone defense system on several American runways.
Gatwick is about 25 miles south of central London and is regularly rated Europe’s worst airport and one of the worst in the world. Chris Grayling, Britain’s transportation minister, acknowledged as much in an interview with the BBC on Friday.
“We’re going to have to learn very quickly from what’s happened,” Mr. Grayling said, describing the episode as “unprecedented, anywhere in the world.” He told the BBC that security officials had matters in hand, and that the airport would not reopen unless officials believed there would be no further disruptions. He added that security was being increased at the country’s other airports to prevent similar drone incursions.
The police in Sussex, outside London, were combing through hundreds of tips that had come in since Thursday, and said on Twitter that they were focusing their investigation on the “identity or location of the #drone operator.” They said there were “no indications to suggest this is terror related.”
Airport employees first spotted a pair of drones flying over the perimeter fence and into the runway area around 9 p.m. Wednesday. The devices reappeared Thursday morning, and the police searched the perimeter of the airfield for the drones’ operators.
The ability of a relatively small drone to shut down a huge part of infrastructure serving a large city like London has raised questions about the regulations in place to deal with these small machines, particularly as ownership of drones proliferates.
The last 36 hours have demonstrated that there is “an awful lot more work that needs to be done across the U.K. and internationally to address the risk of drones to airports,” Mr. Woodroofe said. “ The reality is that, as we sit here today, there is no commercial solution that’s licensed to operate at airports that’s proven, and so you’re absolutely right — we have called in government agencies and the military to assist us in getting Gatwick Airport back open again to counteract this unprecedented event, this criminal act.”