Interesting bits...<p><i>One piece of equipment believed to have been deployed at the airport is the Israeli-developed Drone Dome system, which can detect drones using radar. It can also jam communications between the drone and its operator, enabling authorities to take control of and land the drone.</i><p><i>In a move known as "buzzing the tower", it emerged the perpetrator had taunted airport staff by circling the drone around the building and flashing its lights</i><p><i>A detailed description of the drone, provided by witnesses, meant experts were able to determine the make and model of the machine, which is only available from a handful of locations in the UK.</i><p><i>Police and military experts were deployed to search for the operators of the drones, which reappeared near the airport every time the authorities tried to reopen the runways.</i><p>TLDR; There are no sure fire way to track down offender and police mainly relied on informants and traditional detective work of identifying drone and who might have purchased it.<p>Better coverage is here:<p><a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/22/gatwick-airport-drone-chaos-man-woman-arrested-passengers-brace/" rel="nofollow">https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/22/gatwick-airport-...</a><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/22/gatwick-drone-arrests-two-people-held-over-disruption-of-airport" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/22/gatwick-dron...</a>
Given the shockingly naive comments about drone disabling being proposed, I'm going to assume only a very tiny handful of people who visit this site has ever flown or seen a drone before. Let's cure some of this naivety:<p>- GPS jamming doesn't jam video feed.<p>- Wifi and radio jamming doesn't stop landmark-driven/return-to-home navigation.<p>- UK refusal to fire on the craft is absurd because rubber bullets, simunitions, and less-than-lethal rounds are more than capable of destabilizing the hull and structure of the craft... while inflicting no damage on distant landed craft or personnel. (I wouldn't expect HN to know this, tbh)<p>-Sending piles of off-the-shelf consumer drones up to ram into it would have been sufficient as well.<p>Because of those last two points, the bumbling incompetence of UK security forces suggests to me that this event is purely pretext for even more rigid anti-drone legislation in a country that already has extreme anti-drone legislation. If true, then the question is, "What has changed that has made Airstrip One suddenly paranoid about drones?"
Seems to be a very cheap (and relatively safe) way to cause a lot of financial damage. I wonder if we will see more of such events coming from activist or foreign agents trying to destabilize a system.
Hello from Gatwick airport. Arrived Wednesday evening. About to board my third scheduled flight. I hope it doesn't get cancelled again!<p>As an American, the British response to this seems very restrained. If this incident happened in the USA, I would have expected tight, armed security everywhere in the airport. Gatwick just seems like business as usual.
I wonder if Gatwick used their Aeyreon Skyranger drones to track the drones
<a href="http://www.guildford-dragon.com/2016/04/08/49799/" rel="nofollow">http://www.guildford-dragon.com/2016/04/08/49799/</a>
Odd that there has been no news footage of the offending drones, you'd think they would be very visible...
it would probably take too long to fly in the drone catching eagle:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5DEg2qZzkU" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5DEg2qZzkU</a><p><a href="https://techcrunch.com/2016/02/01/watch-this-trained-eagle-take-down-a-flying-drone/" rel="nofollow">https://techcrunch.com/2016/02/01/watch-this-trained-eagle-t...</a>
I'm not saying this would have worked at Gatwick because I was not on the ground there, but GPS can be "spoofed" locally for specific vehicles.<p><a href="http://www.engr.utexas.edu/features/humphreysspoofing" rel="nofollow">http://www.engr.utexas.edu/features/humphreysspoofing</a>
Surprised they didn't bust out the Eagle Anti-Drone system: <a href="https://www.popsci.com/dutch-anti-drone-police-eagles-ready-for-duty" rel="nofollow">https://www.popsci.com/dutch-anti-drone-police-eagles-ready-...</a><p>Yes ... Eagles as in the bird.w<p>Obligatory: <a href="https://xkcd.com/1842/" rel="nofollow">https://xkcd.com/1842/</a>
In UK, nobody can legally fly an RC plane without a permission of nobody other than a Chief of Defence Staff himself...<p>Yet, all and everybody who fly drones recreationally don'y even know of the regulation.<p>> Prior to apply for operation approval via Form CAA/AS/017, you are required to obtain the Security Clearance from the Office of the Chief of Defence Staff (OCDS) for the Operation of the Drone using below Fax or e-mail.