Possible Drone Sighting Halts Departures At London’s Heathrow Airport

Heathrow is the busiest airport in the United Kingdom and one of the busiest in the world. Any delays caused due to disruptions at the airport certainly have a knock-on effect across the globe as passengers take-off late and many might miss their connecting flights. It’s facing a disruption today as a possible drone sighting has halted departures as this busy airport.

This possible drone sighting follows flight disruptions at London’s Gatwick Airport last month. Flight operations were severely impacted for a couple of days as the authorities tried to get the drone situation under control. It was reported that the British Army deployed an Israeli-made anti-drone system to handle the situation.

Heathrow’s management sent out a tweet not too long ago confirming that “We are responding to a drone sighting at Heathrow and are working closely with the Met Police to prevent any threat to operational safety.” It adds that the departures have been halted as a precautionary measure.

It was reported recently that both Gatwick and Heathrow have spent a considerable amount of money in deploying anti-drone systems to tackle something of precisely this nature. Details are slim on the system and it’s too soon to say if it has proven to be useful in this particular incident.

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We are responding to a drone sighting at Heathrow and are working closely with the Met Police to prevent any threat to operational safety. As a precautionary measure, we have stopped departures while we investigate. We apologise to passengers for any inconvenience this may cause.

— Heathrow Airport (@HeathrowAirport) January 8, 2019

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: General
Tags: Drones