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London's Heathrow Airport Halts Departures Over Drone Sighting (cnbc.com)

Posted by msmash on from the growing-problem dept.

London's Heathrow Airport halted departures on Tuesday after a report of a drone sighting, less than a month after a similar event crippled operations at a major U.K. airport. From a report: "We are currently responding to a drone sighting at Heathrow and are working closely with the Met Police to prevent any threat to operational safety," a spokesperson for the airport said. "As a precautionary measure, we have stopped departures while we investigate. We apologise to passengers for any inconvenience this may cause."

6 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. DDOS: Drone Denial of Service by MDMurphy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Could a few dozen drones, a few at each of major airports, with some nice shiny radar reflectors, clog the air traffic system? They could pop out of parked cars spook everyone, to hide after a minute or two, or be replaced by the next one in the queue. Can it be that easy? I would hope not.

  2. Is that all that it takes? by OneHundredAndTen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If flying a drone is all that it takes to bring Heathrow down to its knees, the Brits are even in more trouble than we thought.

    1. Re:Is that all that it takes? by ISayWeOnlyToBePolite · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm thinking they need to invest in the technology to quickly and safely shoot these out of the sky and resume operations. I'm also thinking most of them would cause less damage to a jet than a goose strike would.

      Some tests have been made with drone and aircraft collisions https://www.aerospacetestingin...
      “The bird did more apparent damage to the leading edge of the wing, but the Phantom penetrated deeper into the wing and damaged the main spar, which the bird did not do,”

    2. Re:Is that all that it takes? by Drethon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A drone sucked into a jet engine is no small problem.

      So is multiple 15 pound fleshy objects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      I see a bunch of geese eating on the lawn of our airport right now, should we shut down the airport? I guess they are making the assumption that a drone flown near an airport is done with malice, whereas a goose probably doesn't have any malice toward a typical airliner. Still, is the risk really any different?

      Just my bent $0.02.

  3. This is just stage 1: by sheramil · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Stage 2 involves deploying drones that somewhat resemble pigeons.

    Stage 3 is where the relevant authorities discover they can't tell the drones from the pigeons, and all air traffic is halted, permanently. The pigeons win.

  4. Re: DDOS: Drone Denial of Service by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You don't even need the drones. Just claim you saw one. You can even phone it in anonymously.