Gatwick closed (mod note post 1)

realdanbreen

Jimbob1977 wrote: »

Maybe a naive suggestion....

Send up a helicopter with some form of taser or beanbag gun (non-lethal weapons used on humans).

Get as close as you can and knock it out of the sky

Not naïve but a day too late!
The drones are gone and some kid is £500 richer!

Mr.Wemmick

Wanderer2010 wrote: »

We can send a man to the moon but cant intercept a flying toy over one of the busiest airports on the planet. Embarrassing now matter which way you spin it...

Agreed. You would wonder if the years of austerity & cutbacks have fuelled the police and security services inability to handle threats like the drones in Gatwick. Haven't UK security services come out and talked about the lack of resources and too many skipped years of training personell to effectively handle and manage a Brexit fall out?

Whatever way you look at it, it is a conundrum as to why it took them so long to figure out what to do.

seamus

robinph wrote: »

...and that wouldn't have taken a great deal of effort to arrange at short notice. Even if the police don't have their own drone they are willing/ able to sacrifice a couple of phone calls to the local drone pilots and someone will happily fly theirs on a kamikazi mission with the promise of a new one being in the post for them a couple of days later. They just sit around the airport and wait, then chase it down, record the video, crash...new drone for christmas from the Police and a happy airport giving you access to their posh business lounge on your next flight.

I wonder did they get tied up in their own red tape and that's why they were so paralysed?

"Wait, what if I just pop down to Tesco, buy a drone and we fly it up there and collide?"

"We're not authorised to fly drones above the airfield"

"But..."

"We could apply to the CAA to get extraordinary clearance, I suppose"

"Whu..."

"But you have to apply two weeks in advance. We could file for emergency clearance, but that would also require the board of airport to approve it as well"

"Si..."

"And the CAA have closed for Christmas, so we can't talk to them."

"Wha..."

"As well as that, the drone collision would have to logged as an incident and investigated by the CAA. And when they find out we caused the incident on purpose, we'd be charged with a crime"

"...right, we'll just keep the airport closed, so".

Alun

Mr.Wemmick wrote: »

Whatever way you look at it, it is a conundrum as to why it took them so long to figure out what to do.

Maybe because it was something new that they hadn't had to deal with before? Hardly comparable to something like sending a man to the moon that had years of planning.

plodder

Wheres Me Jumper? wrote: »

i did read about a theory that as a species we have evolved to become used to a certain level of uncertainty and stress. you know dinosaurs, earthquakes, tsunamis etc.

but in the absence of this stress, as in our cosy warm middle-class homes, well/over fed, no more dinosaurs, we invent it.

it's as if we become stressed about not being stressed.

The dinosaurs died off 65 million years ago. So, I don't think we had to worry too much about them as a species.

Wheres Me Jumper?

plodder wrote: »

The dinosaurs died off 65 million years ago. So, I don't think we had to worry too much about them as a species.

ok but what's a few million years between existential crises?

watch & learn!:p

Mr.Wemmick

Alun wrote: »

Maybe because it was something new that they hadn't had to deal with before? Hardly comparable to something like sending a man to the moon that had years of planning.

In technology terms, it is not new - if you have the technology to make the drones in the first place, it's not rocket science to look at how to disable them if one is used as a threat.

No doubt, they will figure it out now and put something in place to prevent future disruption.

Nermal

Couldn't a drone be easily programmed to autonomously avoid another drone crashing into it?

Hurrache

Wheres Me Jumper? wrote: »

we all know there are more than ample number of commoner-garden idiots out there.

"Common or garden", but I suppose commoner could work too in some situations.

seamus

Nermal wrote: »

Couldn't a drone be easily programmed to autonomously avoid another drone crashing into it?

Rudimentary collision avoidance algorithms are pretty straightforward. But they assume that everyone wants to avoid collision.

Programming the drone to actively avoid an attack is far more complicated, because it can't be predictable.

Wheres Me Jumper?

i think a 12 gauge shotgun is yer only man. if you can get close enough that is.
the pellets disperse so will not be a danger to anyone.

L1011

This is another reminder that this isn't AH. This applies to all posters. Read the forum charter if you are not a regular poster here (actually, read it anyway)

NIMAN

Do we think a top US airport would have been closed for nearly 3 days cos someone was flying a drone over it?

I severely doubt it. The British authorities have come out of this looking very amateurish.

Van.Bosch

NIMAN wrote: »

Do we think a top US airport would have been closed for nearly 3 days cos someone was flying a drone over it?

I severely doubt it. The British authorities have come out of this looking very amateurish.

How is 1.5 days nearly 3days?

It was closed 9pm Wednesday to 6am Friday?

But to answer your undramatised question, I’d say no. The US would have done something.

Tenger

I agree. I had 2 mates who were in Boston during the marathon bombing. They can remember the curfew that took place with heavily armed police at every junction.


Im sure the US would have had dozens of choppers swarming the place. The UK is a lot less militarised. And their response may well take longer as it doesnt escalate to Homeland Security as quickly in the UK as in the US. The UK doesnt have the paranoia that currently exists in the US.
Firstly the initial incident would have been an airport authority problem, as it persisted it would be passed up the chain to the CAA. They could then request assistance from the local police. As it continued to evade detection the military became involved.
Remember that there have been drone sightings at dozens of airports worldwide over the last couple of years. My guess is that the closure on Wed night was not predicted to develop into international news.

megatron989

In the US I'm sure Trump would have advocated carpet bombing 10km radius of the runway and blamed Democrats.
In all seriousness though, I'm worried about copy cats seeing the news coverage and deciding to join in. This could escalate rather quickly while authorities work out procedures to combat the issue. I'm also shocked it's not happening more often.
You can order one of those big 'industrial' drones from China for a lot less than people think, so not even the price of a dji is an obstacle if someone wants to cause greaf on a massive scale.

QuintusFabius

megatron989 wrote: »

In the US I'm sure Trump would have advocated carpet bombing 10km radius of the runway and blamed Democrats.
In all seriousness though, I'm worried about copy cats seeing the news coverage and deciding to join in. This could escalate rather quickly while authorities work out procedures to combat the issue. I'm also shocked it's not happening more often.
You can order one of those big 'industrial' drones from China for a lot less than people think, so not even the price of a dji is an obstacle if someone wants to cause greaf on a massive scale.

Brilliant ! So progressive.

Did they catch the drone operators ?
Were they just idiots trying to get some good photos or was there a more sinister motive behind this ?

Eventually we will see a plane be taken down from a drone on take off ... all that fuel - disaster.

zell12

Spanish Eyes

I don't know if there were drones or not, no one really does, no evidence that I can see.

But anyway, something big happened to close the airport for two days. Seems to be resolved now, but the drone pilot is still out there, (if that was the case), and possibly others will copy this method in the future elsewhere.

Glad it's sorted though, but I am of the opinion that it was a little more than a drone incursion. D notice probably sorted that one out.

ED E

zell12 wrote: »

Worth noting that none of this is much use if the operator:

A) Disables DJIs failsafes (which they had to do to enter controlled airspace)
Is using preprogrammed routes removing the control requirement

At that point the only game in town is a wide area GPS block which would cause mass disruption to civilians and some military assets (see Rusia vs NATO in FI last month).



The fact they were spotted with specialist anti drone kit does lend some credence to it being a real incident and not cover.

faoiarvok

Mint Sauce wrote: »

That was bought up on thursday morning, that Gatwick would have their own Drone and crash in to it.

The raining debris was an arguememt against it use. I had two arguements against that, one similar to shooting it down, put a media announement on all platforms and this is being done, and also, dont Runway staff do a sweep between takeoffs anyway to check for debris. Surley closing the runway for an hour or so, to send sweepers down to clear up the mess, is better than leaving it closed for near 48 hrs.

Shoot/Crash it down, WHILST hunting for the operator, is surely better than waiting for it to reappear again.

I figured as well as the FOD/collateral damage concerns, they may have been assuming that the perpetrator had more drones ready to go, so it doesn't actually make the area safe if they assume another one will pop up soon.

seamus

ED E wrote: »

Worth noting that none of this is much use if the operator:

A) Disables DJIs failsafes (which they had to do to enter controlled airspace)
Is using preprogrammed routes removing the control requirement

At that point the only game in town is a wide area GPS block which would cause mass disruption to civilians and some military assets (see Rusia vs NATO in FI last month).

The fact they were spotted with specialist anti drone kit does lend some credence to it being a real incident and not cover.

Yeah. Presumably the purpose of IDing the drone is to know what the right frequencies and signals are to shutdown the drone.

None of which is of any use if a custom OS has been rolled for it, or some components swapped out and adapted.

This is maybe another reason why it took so long; the typical countermeasures wouldn't work, but they couldn't figure out why?

Idbatterim

what speed can the drones move? could birds of prey be used to track them or take them down?

Hotblack Desiato

QuintusFabius wrote: »

Were they just idiots trying to get some good photos or was there a more sinister motive behind this ?

Clearly not trying to get good photos at night. The obvious motivation was to shut down the airport. Likely someone with a grudge against aviation in general, or Gatwick (and its mooted second runway) in particular.

Eventually we will see a plane be taken down from a drone on take off ... all that fuel - disaster.

Pretty much the worst thing a drone can do is take out one engine, which will not cause a crash (takeoff is already the most common time for an engine to fail and it's something every multi-engine pilot has to train for.) A flock of birds, especially big ones like geese can take out two engines at the same time and/or cause damage to several parts of the airframe at once. Remember this? A drone couldn't have caused that, and under other circumstances it could have ended very badly.

Hotblack Desiato

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

I don't know if there were drones or not, no one really does, no evidence that I can see.

Yes there was, there were pictures.

aaakev

Here's a picture

H3llR4iser

Deleted User wrote: »

The image this is sending out, in my opinion, is that if you had any kind of terrorism interest at all, you'd be seeing this and realising that if you can get any kind of explosive attached to a drone, the world is your oyster, as the UK simply don't know what to do with a drone.


Instead of even mentioning it, they should simply have requested a media blackout on it, and ignored it until it's over and done (that goes for both if it is actually a drone causing all this trouble, or if that's just an excuse for another issue).

This; Besides the fact I also think it's incredible they simply couldn't follow the thing (with an helicopter, you just need to roughly follow it - keep eyes trained on them and see where it lands, it's frankly unlikely we're talking about one of these tiny things they sell in toy shops), the most amazing thing is the coverage this has received: basically an annoucemet that "morons the world over, you can make the news by shutting down an international airport with a drone!"

Make up some bloody story about a "radar blackout" ffs...

Spanish Eyes

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Yes there was, there were pictures.

Were they identified as being over Gatwick or just file pics? I dunno, bit sceptical me. And I know they are tiny in the sky, but seems odd that those journos with telephoto lenses couldn't get a decent pic with a positioning confirmation either. But anyway.

I reckon all that kind of photography was shut down. Can understand the nervousness, but tin foil is a good way to say D notice too!

No matter, all is well again. And glad people can get to where they are going now.

Wheres Me Jumper?

police are now saying they have identified "persons of interest" in their hunt for the culprits.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/21/gatwick-airport-reopens-limited-number-of-flights-drone-disruption

the net is closing...

robinph

sugarman wrote: »

.

..and what happens when if it decides to decides to fly into the propellers?

Would a drone be able to get near a helicopter?

It could possibly try to fall ontop of it, but can't see how it would be able to get near from anywhere below the rotor blades as the helicopter wins on air movement capabilities.