All departing flights at London Heathrow are suspended after a drone sighting

[Master Disaster]

All departing flights are currently suspended at europe's busiest airport after a drone sighting has been reported

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Departures at Heathrow have been stopped after a drone was sighted, the airport has said.

 

A Heathrow spokeswoman said they were working with police to "prevent any threat to operational safety".

Currently this is precautionary while the sighting is confirmed.

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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.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46803713

 

This is a breaking story so I'll update it as more information emerges.

[Tataffe]

Own a drone? Don't want your mother in law to visit? ez

[imreloadin]

Wow, who knew it was so easy to throw a major international airport into complete disarray...all terrorists need is a drone to cause disruption, no bombs required!

[MyName13]

This has already been posted once.

[RejZoR]

Our airport is using trained hawks to hunt down potential drones. I know Heathrow is quite a lot larger, but still, they could really deploy some sort of measures against drones.

[FratStar]

Wow someone is really doing this again. Didn't this happen like during Christmas too?

[Master Disaster]

11 minutes ago, MyName13 said:

This has already been posted once.

No, no it hasn't.

[Master Disaster]

2 minutes ago, FratStar said:

Wow someone is really doing this again. Didn't this happen like during Christmas too?

Yeah but at a different airport. If Heathrow closes like Gatwick did there will be Chaos.

[Master Disaster]

9 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Our airport is using trained hawks to hunt down potential drones. I know Heathrow is quite a lot larger, but still, they could really deploy some sort of measures against drones.

I think after last time they authorised the Army to deploy some anti drone tech when required.

[Velcade]

People should really stop messing around with airports.

[RejZoR]

6 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

I think after last time they authorised the Army to deploy some anti drone tech when required.

They'll need that tech there 24/7 really. One thing is some random nobody dicking around with a drone. Imagine if some terrorist carries a payload of some sort next to airplane that's taking off or into its engine and detonates it. I don't think you'd need much and drones probably can carry that. And even if we aren't talking such extreme cases, just shutting down air traffic for hours because of some jerk with a drone is devastating on the nerves of the passengers and on airport's profits (or losses). Grounded airplans are 100% loss of money.

[NumLock21]

52 minutes ago, MyName13 said:

This has already been posted once.

That was at a different airport. 

[maartendc]

58 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Our airport is using trained hawks to hunt down potential drones. I know Heathrow is quite a lot larger, but still, they could really deploy some sort of measures against drones.

Hawks against drones? That is badass!

 

Do the hawks take down the drones with their claws?

[givingtnt]

Darn it, I work at the airport and we're getting a British airway flight but it already left

I was almost expecting less work today

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

24 minutes ago, maartendc said:

Hawks against drones? That is badass!

 

Do the hawks take down the drones with their claws?

Yes. Many countries have experimented with using birds, more eagles than hawks, to take down drones with limited success. The Netherlands was the first to try it but has since abandodned the project. Others, such as France and the SSA (Squabbling States of America) are also looking into it.

 

Frankly, methinks a drone programmed to hunt down other drones within given boundries and take them down with a net would be more pratical and humane.

[BuckGup]

It's a DOS attack with drones

[wANKER]

Oh no... Someone flew a drone into an Airport's airspace causing it to close

BREAKING NEWS NOW GO GO GO GO GO 

 

Ha ha, someone closed Gatwick with their drone...

Bro, get the drone out, we 'bout to have some fun 

 

Oh no... Someone flew a drone into an Airport's airspace causing it to close, again

BREAKING NEW NOW GO GO GO GO GO

 

Guess what comes next in the sequence

[Master Disaster]

Well it's reopen again so that's a good thing.

[CarlBar]

2 hours ago, RejZoR said:

They'll need that tech there 24/7 really. One thing is some random nobody dicking around with a drone. Imagine if some terrorist carries a payload of some sort next to airplane that's taking off or into its engine and detonates it. I don't think you'd need much and drones probably can carry that. And even if we aren't talking such extreme cases, just shutting down air traffic for hours because of some jerk with a drone is devastating on the nerves of the passengers and on airport's profits (or losses). Grounded airplanes are 100% loss of money.

 

Don't need explosives if you fly it into the engine. but drones are way slower than aircraft, it would be super tricky to pull off.

 

The threat from them is because they don't show up on civilian radar, (british military may or may not be able to find them depending on branch and radar used, HMS Daring almost certainly could, but every military thats exercised with her considers her Radar cheating ), so there's no way to ensure they don't randomly wonder into an aircraft's path.

[maartendc]

20 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

 

Don't need explosives if you fly it into the engine. but drones are way slower than aircraft, it would be super tricky to pull off.

 

The threat from them is because they don't show up on civilian radar, (british military may or may not be able to find them depending on branch and radar used, HMS Daring almost certainly could, but every military thats exercised with her considers her Radar cheating ), so there's no way to ensure they don't randomly wonder into an aircraft's path. 

Well even if a bird gets into the Jet engine, it causes engine failure. I think this is relatively uncommon, but that flight that made an emergency landing in the Hudson river in 2009 was struck by birds: https://www.scienceabc.com/pure-sciences/what-really-happens-when-a-bird-hits-strike-an-airplane.html

 

(funny that the article states: "no casualties" occured, as I am sure the birds died).

[ZacoAttaco]

This seems like a really easy way to annoy and disrupt a lot of people. Drones should be no where near an airport, if you're carrying one, it should be something you need to declare.

 

Now that I think about it, drones are so interesting, especially the ones with cameras attached are full of controversy. Personally, I think it's more useful for a business or enterprise situations, with companies like Amazon using them. Here's an interesting site http://tacocopter.com/

[Monkey Dust]

11 minutes ago, maartendc said:

Well even if a bird gets into the Jet engine, it causes engine failure. I think this is relatively uncommon, but that flight that made an emergency landing in the Hudson river in 2009 was struck by birds: https://www.scienceabc.com/pure-sciences/what-really-happens-when-a-bird-hits-strike-an-airplane.html

 

(funny that the article states: "no casualties" occured, as I am sure the birds died).

But Heathrow doesn't have a large river nearby to ditch in. It would have to glide quite a distance before the Thames got wide enough.

[williamcll]

All they need to do is just allow police to shoot drones.

[ARikozuM]

 

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(funny that the article states: "no casualties" occured, as I am sure the birds died).

Nah, man, they're in Iron Man suits. 

 

On topic: Time to budget for fly-swatters. 

[Shreyas1]

22 hours ago, williamcll said:

All they need to do is just allow police to shoot drones.

>Police tries to shoot drone

>Police misses his shot

>Bullet hits someone or something in the suburbs nearby causing property damage or worse

 

I feel like using some sort of way to interfere with the drones would be a better idea