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Gatwick closed (mod note post 1)

Mebuntu

LGW has been closed for some time. Diversions in progress.

Mod Note added 23/12/2018:

This is not the Conspiracy Theories forum, nor is it After Hours. Posters who do not come here often are asked to read the charter. Conspiracy theory posts are not acceptable here.

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Alun

jasper100 wrote: »

So what sort of damage would a tiny drone do to a plane? Even if it hit an engine and managed to shut it down there is still a spare engine. If it hits anywhere else it would just bounce off and get destroyed presumably?

Not really ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH0V7kp-xg0

Inquitus

jasper100 wrote: »

So what sort of damage would a tiny drone do to a plane? Even if it hit an engine and managed to shut it down there is still a spare engine. If it hits anywhere else it would just bounce off and get destroyed presumably?

I saw an article somewhere today about this, one of the concerns was the batteries could lodge themselves in the planes fusilage on impact and then they would combust. A drone could also smash the pilot's windshield. These are unlikely outcomes I would imagine, I assume it would also make shíte of an engine too, as you mention.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46632892

In October 2017, a drone collided with a commercial aircraft in Canada, striking one of the plane's wings. The plane sustained minor damage but was able to land safely.

Experts agree that a drone could damage an aircraft
Research on drone damage to aircraft is still limited but a number of institutions have tested a variety of impact scenarios and each seems to reach a different conclusion.

Tests conducted at the University of Dayton in the US mimicked a midair collision between a 2.1lb (1kg) quadcopter and a commercial aircraft travelling at 238mph (383km/h) and appeared to show it inflicting major damage.

Other research from the Alliance for System Safety of Unmanned aircraft system through research Excellence (Assure) in conjunction with the US's Federal Aviation Authority suggested drones could inflict more damage than a bird collision and the lithium ion batteries that power them may not shatter upon impact, instead becoming lodged in airframes and posing a potential risk of fire.

Ravi Vaidyanathan, a robotics lecturer at Imperial College, London, told the BBC: "The threat posed to larger aircraft by drones is small but not negligible.

"The probability of a collision is small but a drone could be drawn into a turbine.

"A drone greater than 2kg might break the cockpit windshield as well for certain aircraft."

Van.Bosch

Mebuntu wrote: »

Just been checking Ryanair's Gatwick - Dublin flights today. Funnily enough, they are showing as cancelled on their website but all bar one so far appear on Flightradar as having operated (or are currently operating) from Stansted. Example FR115 over MAN at 14.55.

Maybe they are flying back empty as the pax would be in LGW?

jasper100

So what sort of damage would a tiny drone do to a plane? Even if it hit an engine and managed to shut it down there is still a spare engine. If it hits anywhere else it would just bounce off and get destroyed presumably?

robinph

The length of time this has been going on, and that we know drones don't stay in the air forever, there has to be some details missing from the reporting. Have they been crashing, is it the same drone being relaunched, is it one end of the airport rather than the other. Little things like that I'd expect to have been appearing on the twittersphere by now.

If they were taking off/ landing outside of the airport perimeter then someone must have seen something by now.

plodder

There must be a worry that there is a major level of organisation and game changing tactics. Like what if dozens of drones have been planted in various locations and they are going to just keep launching them one at a time, at 3-4 hour intervals. They could be anywhere, like on the roofs of buildings in a several mile radius. Though Heathrow would be a better place for that kind of attack given how much more built up the surrounding area is.

Mebuntu

For all we know there may be something attached to the drones that the police are not saying anything about.

...FR9852 from Cork to Gatwick is now descending into Stansted. Fair play to Ryanair for keeping things going all day.

4068ac1elhodqr

Paulina Fit Slime wrote: »

There's not just one drone hovering constantly over the airport since 9pm last night.......

Maybe two, but hardly a swarm.

They said they didn't want to take it/them down incase of any projectile presenting a risk to the public (assuming on descent)

Surely there's acres of open fields around the port, meaning they could even send up a bow and arrow and not worry too much about it coming back down and landing on anyone.

Instead allow of the disruption of 30-100k folks.

Still good practice for the brexit perhaps with flights delayed or cancelled.

robinph

I guess it's still not ending anytime soon, the military have been called in:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-sussex-46564814?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=5c1bb9bd3a2f470665a2430b%26Gatwick%20disruption%3A%20Army%20in%20discussion%20with%20police%262018-12-20T15%3A49%3A29.222Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:d1b0937f-9142-42ec-9343-e331046f1106&pinned_post_asset_id=5c1bb9bd3a2f470665a2430b&pinned_post_type=share

Could be just for extra manpower to search the area, could be to have some people in cammo gear holding big guns standing around to scare people into the open. As far as shooting stuff out of the sky though I don't see that they can do anything much that the Police can't do themselves, bigger guns are not going to help anyway if they don't know what they are shooting at.

Oafley Jones

joe40 wrote: »

The americans would have launched jets and shot it down by now.
Seriously though this level of disruption achieved in a relatively simple way won't go unnoticed.

What the Americans are actually doing...

https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2017/11/14/16634572/dji-aeroscope-drone-detection-interception-tech-next-level-lauren-goode

nim1bdeh38l2cw

joe40 wrote: »

The americans would have launched jets and shot it down by now.
Seriously though this level of disruption achieved in a relatively simple way won't go unnoticed.

There's not just one drone hovering constantly over the airport since 9pm last night.......

joe40

The americans would have launched jets and shot it down by now.
Seriously though this level of disruption achieved in a relatively simple way won't go unnoticed.

seamus

basill wrote: »

Now following it back to where it gets recharged is probably where the solution lies if they can maintain eyes on them.

If it's going back. With a reasonable amount of forward thinking, you could decide that programming the drone to just fall out of the sky when it's done might cost you €250 each time but it's a damn sight better than going to prison

The suggestion earlier was that a couple of people were doing this, but there's just as many reasons to believe it's a single individual with 10 or 20 drones ready to fly.

Drive around the vicinity of the airport, drop drones off within a 1km radius of the airport, programmed to take off at a specific time and fly to a specific GPS co-ordinate (i.e. the airport) fly around in random patterns for a while and when you have about 2% battery left, take off in some random direction and keep flying until you drop out of the air.

If someone came to me and asked me the best way to achieve this level of chaos, that's what I'd advise.

Edit: I would like to note at this juncture for the Gardai in attendence that I have not been in the UK for a couple of years and have never actually seen a drone in the flesh, never mind write code for one

Mebuntu

Just been checking Ryanair's Gatwick - Dublin flights today. Funnily enough, they are showing as cancelled on their website but all bar one so far appear on Flightradar as having operated (or are currently operating) from Stansted. Example FR115 over MAN at 14.55.

zell12

An airline source has told the BBC that flights are currently cancelled until at least 19:00
A total of 722 flights were scheduled to and from Gatwick today across all airlines.

robinph

basill wrote: »

Read the earlier posts. Likely a commercial drone that is programmed and flying solo. No need to be in contact with an operator once its airborne. Now following it back to where it gets recharged is probably where the solution lies if they can maintain eyes on them.

Think it was on the Sky News feed that they just had a comment from some drone "expert" saying it probably wasn't a particularly high tech model or they would be able to track it better and she reckoned it would be cheapo toy models.

Think she probably doesn't understand that the software could be hacked to remove any geofencing.

Edit: Was actually on the BBC News feed:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-sussex-46564814?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=5c1ba400ae4345065e478def%26Gatwick%20drone%20%27likely%20to%20be%20a%20toy%27%262018-12-20T14%3A17%3A08.808Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:300c0636-9b0a-4656-89ee-05a5f3d5ad5f&pinned_post_asset_id=5c1ba400ae4345065e478def&pinned_post_type=share

AGC

Mebuntu wrote: »

Two more Ryanair DUB-LGW flights have flown to STN instead. FR112 and FR114. Lucky folk.

I know Ryanair have a massive hub there but following some tweets others airlines that have diverted to Stansted things are not going well. Stuck on the aircraft for over 4 hours with pax starting to get abusive and police being called.

basill

Marjorie Sparse Sternum wrote: »

In this age of space travel and hypersonic missiles, how hard can it be to detect the localised source of the RF signal of the drone enthusiasts?

Likely a couple of school kids who got a fancy semi-pro drone for chrissymass.

Read the earlier posts. Likely a commercial drone that is programmed and flying solo. No need to be in contact with an operator once its airborne. Now following it back to where it gets recharged is probably where the solution lies if they can maintain eyes on them.

4068ac1elhodqr

In this age of space travel and hypersonic missiles, how hard can it be to detect the localised source of the RF signal of the drone enthusiasts?

Likely a couple of school kids who got a fancy semi-pro drone for chrissymass.

AGC

robinph wrote: »

They were claiming it as the busiest single runway airport in the world this morning, which sounds plausible.

Second behind Mumbai I think

robinph

Idbatterim wrote: »

they have managed to shut down the second busiest airport in the uk!

They were claiming it as the busiest single runway airport in the world this morning, which sounds plausible.

robinph

Won't make a whole lot of difference to the overall number of passengers, but the train companies seem to be allowing people to travel using their plane ticket for long distance trains. Only going to help the few flights to Edinburgh and a couple of other places really as there are not a lot of UK internal routes. But if the airlines don't run internal flights for a couple of days then it would free up some planes and landing slots to clear the backlog of passengers over the next few days to more far flung places.

If you were due to fly to Scotland/ Manchester/ Cardiff then surely you'd have already got on the train anyway by now though.

Idbatterim

Now someone has managed to shut down a major airport for a day, which is a whole other ball game.

they have managed to shut down the second busiest airport in the uk!

seamus

trellheim wrote: »

Its frustrating ... but you just cannot take the chance. When they find the perp they will be made an example of I would say with some severely stiff penalties ... like the costs of the disruption.

We don't do that in Europe, mainly because it's pointless. Order an individual to repay €100m in lost flight costs and he can immediately declare bankruptcy and walk away from the debt a few years later without having paid anything. It's barely even a punishment.

This is one of those incidents that will be used to tighten up laws and introduce real penalties for interfering with aviation traffic. Up to now you might be able to run/drive onto a runway and delay a flight by an hour. So the penalty was relatively small.
Now someone has managed to shut down a major airport for a day, which is a whole other ball game.

Tenzor07

Dreamliner parked up at the Ryanair pier

AGC

trellheim wrote: »

Its frustrating ... but you just cannot take the chance. When they find the perp they will be made an example of I would say with some severely stiff penalties ... like the costs of the disruption.

Unless it's Richard Branson doing it I don't think they will be covering costs

Idbatterim

I wouldn't be too quick to paint us as a banana republic compared to our 'betters' across the water. It's 1.30pm now and still not sorted.

in terms of the response to it, I dont think we can comment much, I'm sure they know what they are doing there, this seems a bit unprecedented and I am sure they will be ready and far better prepared if it happens again. What I am mainly referring to, is the sentence that will be given out if they are apprehended, a few people dressed up over there for halloween and were prosecuted for hate crimes. Over here the guardai would laugh at you if you rang up to report people in "fancy dress"

trellheim

Its frustrating ... but you just cannot take the chance. When they find the perp they will be made an example of I would say with some severely stiff penalties ... like the costs of the disruption.

Working class heroes

It’s black ops!
When all this is sorted it will be used to demonstrate what the airports will be like as a result of a hard Brexit.
It’ll focus the minds in relation to the Brexit vote in the HoC this coming January.

Maybe I’ve had too much coffee today.

Irish Steve

seamus wrote: »

Anti-drone drones are really the only feasible option. Any ground defence would be insanely expensive to develop at that accuracy.

Another part of the problem is that drones are cheap in the grand scheme of things. An individual does not have the funds to develop an actual aircraft of their own. But with 20 grand and a bit of technical knowledge, the array of things you could do with a quadcopter is huge.

Indeed. The scary aspect is that you can cut your 20 grand to closer to 2 grand, that will get you the necessary components and electronics that will build into a drone that's capable of being a nuisance. There's not a lot of complex tech savvy needed any more either, pretty much all of the software needed to get the thing in the air is out there as shareware or freeware, and it's very capable in terms of what it can do.

This event will have come as a very unwelcome wake up call to a number of groups of people,. and the response will be significant, but I doubt we will hear too much about it for quite some time, as they won't want to admit to exactly what their capability is going forward, but I think we can be pretty confident that some very high level discussions will be happening over the next while.