Gatwick closed by drones

[PositronicRay]

bhstewie said:

PositronicRay said:

Supermarket

I'm actually shocked at that. IRA back in those days presumably?

Bit of a cliche but times change I guess, it's 2018 and not that you expect it working in a supermarket, but I just don't think you'd get away with taking that chance these days.

Apparantly IRA would use a code word known @ the police station. We recivied a few threats, clearly no code word, so no police, line managers used sweep the store peering in bins and odd corners looking for anything suspicious. ASDA mainland.

[anonymous-user]

Reading the stuff attributed to the plod spokesperson in the latest release.
They appear completely lost

[bitchstewie]

PositronicRay said:

Apparantly IRA would use a code word known @ the police station. We recivied a few threats, clearly no code word, so no police, line managers used sweep the store peering in bins and odd corners looking for anything suspicious. ASDA mainland.

Makes a bit more sense but no way that st would fly these days.

[PositronicRay]

Apparantly drone sightings may have been police drones, according to The Telegraph.

[Biker 1]

graylag said:

I don’t think Manchester, Liverpool, Heathrow, East Midlands, Leeds / Bradford, Glasgow et al have been closed by a drone either so are they in the same league as Ben Gurion? If not, what was your point?

That the Israelis saw a potential new threat in the form of drone attack, probably involving Arab terrorist organisations, & cooked up a solution to deal with it. I'm amazed the other airports you've mentioned haven't been subjected to drone attack - Gatwick appears to have been the first, & as seems usual in the UK, reactive, rather than proactive action is taken, consequently pissing off a lot of people & costing millions. What are plod saying? ' We've learnt lessons.....' What's new?

[graylag]

Biker 1 said:

That the Israelis saw a potential new threat in the form of drone attack, probably involving Arab terrorist organisations, & cooked up a solution to deal with it. I'm amazed the other airports you've mentioned haven't been subjected to drone attack - Gatwick appears to have been the first, & as seems usual in the UK, reactive, rather than proactive action is taken, consequently pissing off a lot of people & costing millions. What are plod saying? ' We've learnt lessons.....' What's new?

Have they got this tech though? They could just be saying they have. Equally, there’s no evidence that they’ve ever been attacked using the logic from many on here, so the tech might not work anyway.

Does every airport in the world have this fitted? The US is a much bigger target for a drone attack.

[Biker 1]

graylag said:

Have they got this tech though? They could just be saying they have. Equally, there’s no evidence that they’ve ever been attacked using the logic from many on here, so the tech might not work anyway.

Does every airport in the world have this fitted? The US is a much bigger target for a drone attack.

Judging by the hit rate of their Iron Dome anti rocket system & other systems like David's Sling etc, I think they've got a pretty good handle on it. World leaders in the field apparently

[Rich_W]

techiedave said:

Reading the stuff attributed to the plod spokesperson in the latest release.
They appear completely lost

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/gatwick-drone-sightings-may-have-been-of-police-equipment-chief-constable-admits/ar-BBRyLdO?li=BBoPWjQ

Scary isn't it!

[Chrisgr31]

graylag said:

You’ve misunderstood. You’ve said that Ben Gurion airport has never been closed by a drone, as if that means something. I don’t think Manchester, Liverpool, Heathrow, East Midlands, Leeds / Bradford, Glasgow et al have been closed by a drone either so are they in the same league as Ben Gurion? If not, what was your point?

I have been trying to look up to see if other airports have been closed by drones because my guess is they have, however it doesnt normally make national headlines. The reason being they close until the threat has gone and then reopen, rather than staying closed for 36 hours! There are a number of reported near misses from drones at Heathrow.

[red_slr]

Apparently at the early stages (may have been mentioned so sorry if it has) the Sussex police drone was sent up after reports of... a drone..... they then had over 100 reports of a drone flying over the field. Eer ok chaps. WTF!

[Rovinghawk]

Rich_W said:

techiedave said:

Reading the stuff attributed to the plod spokesperson in the latest release.
They appear completely lost

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/gatwick-drone-sightings-may-have-been-of-police-equipment-chief-constable-admits/ar-BBRyLdO?li=BBoPWjQ

Scary isn't it!

How dare you criticise your betters? You must be some kind of police hater to suggest they're a bunch of incompetents.

[eharding]

red_slr said:

Apparently at the early stages (may have been mentioned so sorry if it has) the Sussex police drone was sent up after reports of... a drone..... they then had over 100 reports of a drone flying over the field. Eer ok chaps. WTF!

I did point out at the time the scope for this happening, thinking that it would require an extra-special kind of stupidity on behalf of the authorities to introduce more drones into an environment where febrile drone sightings were causing the closure of the airport, and hence suggested it wasn't a likely course of action.

It appears I was wrong, and that whoever in authority who allowed this to happen really is that extra-special kind of stupid.

[schmalex]

Biker 1 said:

graylag said:

Have they got this tech though? They could just be saying they have. Equally, there’s no evidence that they’ve ever been attacked using the logic from many on here, so the tech might not work anyway.

Does every airport in the world have this fitted? The US is a much bigger target for a drone attack.

Judging by the hit rate of their Iron Dome anti rocket system & other systems like David's Sling etc, I think they've got a pretty good handle on it. World leaders in the field apparently

The Israelis are OK at defeating drones, but still far, far from infallible.

The C-UAS (knocking drones out of the sky) market is full of different solutions; some good, some not so good. One of the big challenges is that civil installations are often not allowed access to the solutions available due to security requirements.

[Coolbanana]

PositronicRay said:

Apparantly drone sightings may have been police drones, according to The Telegraph.

On Sky News the Chief of Police is saying that he is 'absolutely convinced' a rogue drone was present and that the Police drones were not among the 93 'credible witness' (pilot, police etc) sightings reported. A total of 115 sightings to investigate but the 93 are pertinent and if they are not of the Police drones as they are confirming, then it reinforces the Gatwick Boss's decision to close until absolutely certain no drone was in the vicinity.

Naturally, some will still say 'no drone' despite the fact we now know Police drones were deployed too...and yet, they are sooooo easy to photograph...

[red_slr]

If that's the case then would it not have been a really good idea to say to the press/media the police are going to send *their* drone up for sts and giggles at the time...

I reckon someone done f*cked up, big time.

[Chrisgr31]

red_slr said:

If that's the case then would it not have been a really good idea to say to the press/media the police are going to send *their* drone up for sts and giggles at the time...

I reckon someone done f*cked up, big time.

I'd guess they wouldn't want the rogue drone operator to know the Sussex Police drone was up looking for the rogue drone. I suspect the police drone would also have been away from the terminal buildings and in the area they suspected the rogue drone was coming in from.

The police and airport authorities presumably knew where the police drone was so if it was spotted can discount any sightings of it.

[TriumphStag3.0V8]

Chrisgr31 said:

I'd guess they wouldn't want the rogue drone operator to know the Sussex Police drone was up looking for the rogue drone. I suspect the police drone would also have been away from the terminal buildings and in the area they suspected the rogue drone was coming in from.

The police and airport authorities presumably knew where the police drone was so if it was spotted can discount any sightings of it.

Plus the police one must have had flashing blue lights, battenburg and say "Police" down the side of it, yes?

[Cold]

TriumphStag3.0V8 said:

Plus the police one must have had flashing blue lights, battenburg and say "Police" down the side of it, yes?

And the operator would have been doing some weird hand to hand shuffling on the joysticks.

[pingu393]

graylag said:

bhstewie said:

PositronicRay said:

Supermarket

I'm actually shocked at that. IRA back in those days presumably?

Bit of a cliche but times change I guess, it's 2018 and not that you expect it working in a supermarket, but I just don't think you'd get away with taking that chance these days.

Different world with different types of threat. The IRA had agreed code words that were used to verify the threat when phoned into the police. If a code word was used then it was immediate evacuation. I’m not sure why or when they used them though, as their aim seemed to me to be as much death and destruction as possible and I have no time for terrorists.

Not true. PIRA wanted to create mayhem and inconvenience. Death and injury on the mainland, in most cases, were collateral damage.

I spent several years parking my car half on the kerb, not washing it and walking up to it from a distance so that I could see underneath, but I never thought about never using it. Life must go on, but you need to adapt to the threat.

Gatwick bosses did the right thing. Both sides learn things every time there is an incident like this.

[Gareth79]

bhstewie said:

PositronicRay said:

Apparantly IRA would use a code word known @ the police station. We recivied a few threats, clearly no code word, so no police, line managers used sweep the store peering in bins and odd corners looking for anything suspicious. ASDA mainland.

Makes a bit more sense but no way that st would fly these days.

A couple of years ago my then-girlfriend worked at a large department store in Guildford and mentioned they were annoyed because their work was disrupted by a "find the bomb" exercise. My eyebrows raised and she mentioned it was just a thing they did every now and then. Apparently at random they would be told to find the "bomb" which was a tennis ball hidden somewhere in the department, and they had to search and find it while appearing to carry on as normal.

I called the head office and managed to speak to somebody quite high up and at first they said it was a team-building exercise and harmless, but eventually after I explained a few scenarios he realised it was in fact a truly terrible idea on multiple levels and said he'd had it reviewed!