Police have identified “persons of interest” in the hunt for the drone operator, or operators, who caused Gatwick to close for 36 hours, as services at the airport resumed on Friday.
About 150 out of 837 scheduled flights were cancelled after the runway opened just before 6am. The airport said “additional mitigating measures” put in place by the police and military were allowing planes to fly again. However, with planes and crews out of place many services remained cancelled or delayed.
More than 126,000 passengers were due to fly out on Friday, after 110,000 were booked on cancelled flights on Thursday. A first arrival from China landed at about 6am and the first departure, a Norwegian Airlines flight to Lapland, took off soon after.
The operator of the drone or drones had yet to be discovered, but no further sightings had been recorded since 10pm on Thursday.
Sussex police said several lines of inquiry were being pursued and an environmental protest was “a possibility”. But police were not linking the drone or drones to terrorism. The airport’s runway was first closed after sightings at about 9pm on Wednesday.
Assistant chief constable Steve Barry said police were working on the theory there was more than one drone, but added: “In terms of motivation there is a whole spectrum of possibilities, from the really high end criminal behaviour all the way down to just individuals trying to be malicious.”
Speaking outside Gatwick, he said measures to tackle the threat include “technical, sophisticated options to detect and mitigate drone incursions, all the way down to less sophisticated options – even shotguns would be available to officers should the opportunity present itself”.
Police and government would not confirm what equipment was being used but photos from Gatwick suggested that military-grade drone tracking and signal jamming machines had been brought in.
The pilots unions Balpa said it understood that detection and tracking equipment had now been installed around the airport perimeter, but it remained concerned. Brian Strutton, the Balpa general secretary, said: “It is up to the relevant authorities to decide whether it is safe to reopen Gatwick given that the rogue drone is still around and may be expected to fly again.
“[We] remain extremely concerned at the risk of a drone collision. It is possible that the rogue drones may go undetected around the perimeter or could obstruct the flight paths outside the immediate detection zone.”
The transport secretary, Chris Grayling, who on Thursday said “substantial drones” had caused the chaos, said on Friday that it was uncertain whether there was more than one. He denied he had ignored warnings, and said he was planning to hold talks with airports soon to discuss the lessons from Gatwick and try to prevent similar disruption.
Pilots’ unions, aviation bodies and opposition politicians have called for tougher measures and immediate action, including wider exclusion zones around airports.
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