London's Heathrow halts flights after sightings of a drone
Last edited Tue Jan 8, 2019, 02:35 PM - Edit history (1)
Source: Reuters
LONDON (Reuters) - Flights from Londons Heathrow airport were halted on Tuesday after the airport said there had been sightings of a drone near Europes busiest air hub.
We are responding to a drone sighting at Heathrow, the airport said. As a precautionary measure, we have stopped departures while we investigate. We apologize to passengers for any inconvenience this may cause.
A Reuters witness in a plane on the runway at Heathrow said multiple aircraft were waiting for permission to take off.
Londons second busiest airport, Gatwick, was severely disrupted when drones were sighted on three consecutive days in December, resulting in about 1,000 flights being canceled or diverting and affecting 140,000 passengers.
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WORLD NEWS JANUARY 8, 2019 / 12:50 PM / UPDATED 18 MINUTES AGO
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-drones-heathrow/londons-heathrow-halts-flights-after-sightings-of-a-drone-idUSKCN1P21VZ
Source: BBC
Heathrow airport: Drone sighting halts departures
14 minutes ago
Departures at Heathrow have been stopped after a drone was sighted, the airport says.
A Heathrow spokeswoman said the airport was working with police to "prevent any threat to operational safety".
She said: "As a precautionary measure, we have stopped departures while we investigate. We apologise to passengers for any inconvenience this may cause."
It comes after last month's disruption at Gatwick Airport after drones were reported.
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Link to tweet
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-46803713
Sneederbunk
(14,208 posts)Clash City Rocker
(3,379 posts)Is there any way to jam the signal going to the drone? I think anti-drone drones are a thing. It seems likely that this will keep happening until we find a way to stop it.
brooklynite
(93,873 posts)The big problem is that the drones are hard to locate, so directing a disrupting radio wave on the right frequency is a challenge.
LakeSuperiorView
(1,533 posts)Drones can have a "Return to" feature whereby on loss of control signal, they fly back to a set GPS location. If someone flew the drone around a runway, or set a poor location, jamming the signal could cause the drone to bee line into dangerous ground. No way to shut down GPS for a specific locale and planes in the air would be affected.
The frequencies used by commercial drones likely do not interfere with aircraft control, so jamming them is probably possible. However, there's no way of predicting what a drone will do if jammed.
EarthFirst
(2,877 posts)My brother in law in the military has said that they have anti-drone technology aboard ships that actively jam drone signals without interference with their own com/radar systems.
I would imagine that the vast majority of civilian law enforcement agencies don not have immediate access to this.
Sapient Donkey
(1,568 posts)But do believe they are line of sight type things with directional antennas. To do some sort of blanket jamming seems like it would cause a lot of problems. Those also would not work if the drone is working autonomously. Even if the GPS signal is blocked, there are other ways to handle the navigation. Although, that adds to the complexity and idiots who buy these off the shelf just to cause mayhem would be stopped. However, if someone really wanted to cause problems then there isn't a whole lot that could be done by just jamming them. Someone could build a fleet of autonomous drones using pool noodles and components that that be purchased cheaply from China.
I suppose at that point burning them up with lasers would be the best route. I'd hate to be a bird that gets misidentified.
defacto7
(13,485 posts)since the last one was found to probably be unfounded.