The drone attack that caused chaos at Gatwick before Christmas was carried out by someone with knowledge of the airport’s operational procedures, the airport has said. A Gatwick chief told BBC Panorama the drone’s pilot “seemed to be able to see what was happening on the runway”.
Sussex Police told the programme the possibility an “insider” was involved was a “credible line” of inquiry.
About 140,000 passengers were caught up in the disruption.
The runway at the UK’s second busiest airport was closed for 33 hours between 19 and 21 December last year – causing about 1,000 flights to be cancelled or delayed.
In his first interview since the incident, Gatwick’s chief operating officer, Chris Woodroofe, told Panorama: “It was clear that the drone operators had a link into what was going on at the airport.”
Mr Woodroofe, who was the executive overseeing the airport’s response to the attack – the “gold commander” – also said that whoever was piloting the drone could either see what was happening on the runway, or was following the airport’s actions by eavesdropping on radio or internet communications.
And whoever was responsible for the attack had “specifically selected” a drone which could not be seen by the DJI Aeroscope drone detection system that the airport was testing at the time, he added.
‘No overreaction’
Despite a huge operation drawing resources from five other forces and a £50,000 reward, there is still no trace of the culprit.
Sussex Police says its investigation is ongoing and expected to take “some months to complete”.
The first sighting of the drone was at 21:03 GMT on 19 December but it was not until 05:57 GMT on 21 December that flights resumed with an aircraft landing.
Gatwick says it repeatedly tried to reopen the runway but on each occasion the drone reappeared.
Airport protocol mandates that the runway be closed if a drone is present.
Mr Woodroofe denied claims the airport overreacted, describing the situation it faced as an unprecedented, “malicious” and “criminal” incident.
“There is absolutely nothing that I would do differently when I look back at the incident, because ultimately, my number one priority has to be to maintain the safety of our passengers, and that’s what we did.
“It was terrible that 140,000 people’s journeys were disrupted – but everyone was safe.”
Mr Woodroofe also dismissed the suggestion that the number of sightings had been exaggerated – and a theory, circulating online, that there had been no drone at all.
These claims have been fuelled by the fact that there are no verified pictures of the drone, and very few eyewitnesses have spoken publicly.
Police told the BBC they had recorded 130 separate credible drone sightings by a total of 115 people, all but six of whom were professionals, including police officers, security personnel, air traffic control staff and pilots.
Chris Woodroofe
Mr Woodroofe said that many of the drone sightings were by people he knew personally and trusted – “members of my team, people I have worked with for a decade, people who have worked for thirty years on the airfield, who fully understand the implications of reporting a drone sighting”.
“They knew they’d seen a drone. I know they saw a drone. We appropriately closed the airport.”
Panorama has been told witnesses reported seeing an extremely fast-moving, large drone with bright lights.
At least one person noted the characteristic cross shape while others described it as “industrial or commercial” and “not something you could pop into Argos for”, an airport spokesperson said.
Threat remains
Other international airports have installed counter-drone technology and Gatwick has confirmed that, in the days after the attack, it spent £5m on similar equipment.
Asked whether Gatwick should have done more to protect the airport from drones before the incident, Mr Woodroofe said the government had not approved any equipment for drone detection at that stage.
“The equipment I have on site today is painted sand yellow because it comes straight from the military environment,” he added.
Panorama has learned that Gatwick bought two sets of the AUDS (Anti-UAV Defence System) anti-drone system made by a consortium of three British companies.
AUDS was one of two systems the military deployed at the airport on the evening of 20 December.
Mr Woodroofe said he was confident that the airport was now much better protected.
“We would know the drone was arriving on site and we’d know where that drone had come from, where it was going to, and we’d have a much better chance of catching the perpetrator.”
Every day, he said, the airport sends up a drone to test the detection equipment, and “it finds that drone”.
But he added: “What this incident has demonstrated is that a drone operator with malicious intent can cause serious disruption to airport operations.
“And it’s clear that disruption could be carried over into other industries and other environments.”
Source: BBC
I know that this is preaching to the choir. The threat of small UAV’s wreaking havoc to our national air spaces particularly near airports is an issue that needs to be addressed before a tragedy happens.
Looking at the mention of Gatwick’s officials overreacting, what would have happened if there had been an incident even if that incident had not resulted in tragedy? Niel
Agree with you Niel. However what galls me is the Hyperbole in the story , “the Person specifically chose a unit that could not be detected by the DJI Anti Drone System” …. ohhh how sinister, they bought something besides a DJI Product, or they built their own!!! Wow It must be the Russians!!!! Wait Trump did it!!!
Or, it could be a relatively gifted 9 year old who built one out of parts you can order on Amazon or from any number of RC locations, watched a video on You Tube on how to build it. Hey it could be folks who build and sell anti Drone systems for $5 Million Pounds drumming up some business.
“They seemed to have the ability to monitor our communications” Well DUH…. Just because the UK has a law passed in 1949 that basically makes using a scanner illegal to listen to air traffic control, Police, Fire etc, doesn’t mean people don’t have the ability to do so. They could just have a hand held aircraft radio, and have it tuned to your frequencies. You’re not encrypted for crying out loud.
It is also possible there was more than one drone out there, one watching what was going on on the runway and one doing the disruptive acts. The response these folks have to a drone sighting is technologically Cave Man with a Cel Phone. They can detect the most popular selling drone DJI but have NO ability to detect, track, Jam, intercept or anything else…like act.
I was building quad copters out of wooden dowels and thin plywood, using $22 flight controllers before the DJI Phantom even existed. And trust me I am not a radio and electronic genius. I can solder and I can watch YouTube. You don’t need GPS, and depending on what freq you are flying and what freq you are using for video link you most likely won’t even be detected by DJI’s system. DJI’s system is designed for DJI drones. They are proprietary in nature. This is not sinister, this is just normal everyday RC flying.
It is like building a system to detect Land Rover, great we detect them but what about Ford, Bently, and any number of other systems…
You could however for well under a thousand pounds have a setup with a bank of small battery powered FPV receivers and a battery powered monitor with directional antennas for each band, that would instantly allow you to see the drone pilots view. If he flies back to his hide on the edge of the airport you watch where he flies and lands and send the Bobby off to nab the bugger. If he is stupid, you might even get his face as he lands. These monitors have Recorders built in so you get the ability to record everything for later evidence. I you had a hundred + people see this thing Not a single one of them had a cel phone or a decent camera to take a picture? REALLY?
Neolithic morons is too nice a description for the response here.
5 Million pounds!!!! For Christ sake you can for under $1000 US you can build a Radio Direction finding system using a quad receiver SDR (software defined radio) and a laptop that will do the Direction finding for you using Phase Differential Detection. That price would probably include the PC driving it. Though to be honest you could run it with a Raspberry Pi 2 or 3.
A kerberos system comes to mine. All you do is space the 4 antennas out equally and linearly, and it figures out direction based off timing between one antenna and another receiving it. Link below.
https://www.rtl-sdr.com/ksdr/
The FREE Software is definable to search any band so you set up the standard bands for 2.4ghz, 5.8ghz and a few of the other less common ones. (10 minutes on the web will give you all you need to know for frequencies) program them in and the laptop just sits there and monitors the common RF control and video return frequencies for something above a specific threshold and it goes off when It sees it. Oh but wait, to do so would VIOLATE the law in the UK. They are the only country in the world that has such a law.
Head in the sand boys head in the sand….
OH and the photo of Gatwick was shot by someone out of an aircraft either taking off or Landing, so if it was not shot on FILM they violated the law by having an electronic device on during takeoff and landing. Paint scheme could be Virgin Atlantic. That person probably put the passengers in more danger than some putz with a drone….
One more comment, there is nothing in this story or the facts presented in it that indicates it was an INSIDE JOB. No misterious phone calls from employees saying the airport was going to open again, Nobody with walkie Talkies hiding in the baggage bins…. This conclusion is total horse-pucky.