Drones at Gatwick. Airport closed.
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Originally Posted by 4WD
SonofJoe ... I have been through there many times and my current ticket is via LHR ... any of the many major airports I go through would turn difficult really fast in a similar situation ...
I was in Newfoundland on 911 and those were some lucky fliers to be helped by such caring folks outside of the airport ... this day and time I no longer leave an airport in London ...
As for the comments here - I live in the southern USA and hear lots of blowhards ... but when something bad happens ... they are the very ones doing this kind of stuff for days ...
I remember flying back into Heathrow, from a business meeting in Paris. The airport was absolutely packed to the rafters. Had I been even vaguely aware that 9/11 had just happened, I might have offered to provide a family a free roof for few nights.
I like to think people are generally good at heart. However I'm beginning to wonder if I'm at risk of becoming dangerously old fashioned. Smell the wind & there's something decidedly nasty in the air. Egged on by the dolt-Right, it's becoming fashionable again to be extreme & thuggish, both in thought & action.
There's a comment above about a '20' tree & a 10' rope equalling justice'. This is not the utterance of some kindly blowhard. These are the words of someone who's absolutely fine & dandy with the idea of lynching people whose views don't coincide with his own. Shame on the BITOG mods for not taking this obscenity down straight away.
SonofJoe ... I have been through there many times and my current ticket is via LHR ... any of the many major airports I go through would turn difficult really fast in a similar situation ...
I was in Newfoundland on 911 and those were some lucky fliers to be helped by such caring folks outside of the airport ... this day and time I no longer leave an airport in London ...
As for the comments here - I live in the southern USA and hear lots of blowhards ... but when something bad happens ... they are the very ones doing this kind of stuff for days ...
I remember flying back into Heathrow, from a business meeting in Paris. The airport was absolutely packed to the rafters. Had I been even vaguely aware that 9/11 had just happened, I might have offered to provide a family a free roof for few nights.
I like to think people are generally good at heart. However I'm beginning to wonder if I'm at risk of becoming dangerously old fashioned. Smell the wind & there's something decidedly nasty in the air. Egged on by the dolt-Right, it's becoming fashionable again to be extreme & thuggish, both in thought & action.
There's a comment above about a '20' tree & a 10' rope equalling justice'. This is not the utterance of some kindly blowhard. These are the words of someone who's absolutely fine & dandy with the idea of lynching people whose views don't coincide with his own. Shame on the BITOG mods for not taking this obscenity down straight away.
Originally Posted by SonofJoe
Interesting...
None of you are ACTUALLY caught up in the delays at Gatwick. All of you live at least 3,000 miles away from where it's all happening. I'll bet a penny to a pinch of salt most of you have never even been through Gatwick airport before (or even left your home state!).
Yet you all feel it appropriate to call for extreme, apocalytic revenge on the perpetrators regardless of whether this might just be a couple of 14 year olds pratting about like lads do.
It's like BITOG has its own pack of Pavlovian dogs who have been brainwashed into barking & snarling at a specific type of story they see in the media. You think you're all normal. You're not!! The rest of the world looks at you and thinks you're quite mental!
It's not just about delays.
The outrage, for me, is putting people's lives at risk by flying a drone in restricted airspace.
To what end? Terrorism? Sabotage?
Perhaps the motivation is lads "pratting about" but they have ruined 120,000 people's holiday travel, canceled their plans, and cost those people (not to mention the airlines) collectively tens of millions of dollars. That's real damage.
The fact that their "pratting about" put people's lives at risk makes this serious crime, not just having fun. Their "fun" has hurt 120,000 people. That's not like stealing a neighbors apples, or throwing a snowball at a car, as lads will do.
I do get caught up in airport delays. Quite often. I see the impacts on people.
People at airports are, among other things, trying to get to job interviews, weddings, funerals, to see loved ones and go on holidays. Their reason for travel is often very important. Disrupting, including outright cancelation of, those plans is no small matter, either.
I do spend quite a bit of time at airports, by the way. I've left my home state. Been to all 50, in fact, and about 40 other countries, including ‘Stralia, so let's shelve the ad hominem line of argument for now.
Interesting...
None of you are ACTUALLY caught up in the delays at Gatwick. All of you live at least 3,000 miles away from where it's all happening. I'll bet a penny to a pinch of salt most of you have never even been through Gatwick airport before (or even left your home state!).
Yet you all feel it appropriate to call for extreme, apocalytic revenge on the perpetrators regardless of whether this might just be a couple of 14 year olds pratting about like lads do.
It's like BITOG has its own pack of Pavlovian dogs who have been brainwashed into barking & snarling at a specific type of story they see in the media. You think you're all normal. You're not!! The rest of the world looks at you and thinks you're quite mental!
It's not just about delays.
The outrage, for me, is putting people's lives at risk by flying a drone in restricted airspace.
To what end? Terrorism? Sabotage?
Perhaps the motivation is lads "pratting about" but they have ruined 120,000 people's holiday travel, canceled their plans, and cost those people (not to mention the airlines) collectively tens of millions of dollars. That's real damage.
The fact that their "pratting about" put people's lives at risk makes this serious crime, not just having fun. Their "fun" has hurt 120,000 people. That's not like stealing a neighbors apples, or throwing a snowball at a car, as lads will do.
I do get caught up in airport delays. Quite often. I see the impacts on people.
People at airports are, among other things, trying to get to job interviews, weddings, funerals, to see loved ones and go on holidays. Their reason for travel is often very important. Disrupting, including outright cancelation of, those plans is no small matter, either.
I do spend quite a bit of time at airports, by the way. I've left my home state. Been to all 50, in fact, and about 40 other countries, including ‘Stralia, so let's shelve the ad hominem line of argument for now.
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Originally Posted by PimTac
Well boo hoo. If someone had some grenades over in Britain they would stand on their own and this menace would be taken care of.
The anti-Yank attitude is a little tiresome. So much for this thread.
You really do talk the most God awful drivel! We have LOTS of hand grenades in Britain. The British Army is well stocked up on all sorts of hardware. We also have plenty of Eurofighters & F-35s. We even have a few nukes!
Now please explain to me how being in possession of all this helps stop one person flying a drone over an airport, possibly from the comfort of his own bedroom??
Given that you're talking about someone else's country, rather than your own oh-so-utterly-perfect republic, maybe you might do us the courtesy of engaging your brain before opening your big fat unthinking gob!
Well boo hoo. If someone had some grenades over in Britain they would stand on their own and this menace would be taken care of.
The anti-Yank attitude is a little tiresome. So much for this thread.
You really do talk the most God awful drivel! We have LOTS of hand grenades in Britain. The British Army is well stocked up on all sorts of hardware. We also have plenty of Eurofighters & F-35s. We even have a few nukes!
Now please explain to me how being in possession of all this helps stop one person flying a drone over an airport, possibly from the comfort of his own bedroom??
Given that you're talking about someone else's country, rather than your own oh-so-utterly-perfect republic, maybe you might do us the courtesy of engaging your brain before opening your big fat unthinking gob!
And for God's sake! Gatwick is now open again! People were mildly inconvenienced for 24 hours. No one died! No one ended up in hospital. Had it been 24 hours of fog, no one would have batted an eyelid.
You people really need to get a proper sense of perspective on life. This over-the-top outpouring of rabid outrage really makes you look a bunch of total fruitcakes!
You people really need to get a proper sense of perspective on life. This over-the-top outpouring of rabid outrage really makes you look a bunch of total fruitcakes!
Originally Posted by quint
... Idiots like this are going to be the destruction of this and the r/c hobby at a minimum, ...
Possibly, but I do not recall ever hearing about the R/C model airplane folks being a hazard to air navigation; this is exclusively a drone problem, AFAIK.
When I was a kid, the R/C flying field / model rocket launch pads were across the street from the joint municipal airport / flying ANG base. The facilities, including asphalt runways / launch pads were built by the airport. Never a problem, and stayed there until the land was just too valuable for the present use.
I don't know how this problem will be effectively solved; laws are in place already - for the law abiding ... Drone death rays at every airport sounds expensive.
... Idiots like this are going to be the destruction of this and the r/c hobby at a minimum, ...
Possibly, but I do not recall ever hearing about the R/C model airplane folks being a hazard to air navigation; this is exclusively a drone problem, AFAIK.
When I was a kid, the R/C flying field / model rocket launch pads were across the street from the joint municipal airport / flying ANG base. The facilities, including asphalt runways / launch pads were built by the airport. Never a problem, and stayed there until the land was just too valuable for the present use.
I don't know how this problem will be effectively solved; laws are in place already - for the law abiding ... Drone death rays at every airport sounds expensive.
Originally Posted by SonofJoe
Given that you're talking about someone else's country, rather than your own oh-so-utterly-perfect republic, maybe you might do us the courtesy of engaging your brain before opening your big fat unthinking gob!
Right back at ya. You're the one acting like a fruitcake here.
I have only landed a handful of planes in my life. Landing a Cessna 172 in a 20 mph crosswind caused me to ruin at least one pair of underwear. I had the honor of trying to land a 767 in a simulator at the airport I worked at, and in the six minutes I sat in the captain's chair trying to bring this beast down in one piece (I failed), it didnt take much to figure out that someone trying to juggle eight bowling balls while skydiving blindfolded through a thunderstorm with 100 angry wasps in his pants has more free time to contemplate life than a pilot trying to get an airliner down in one piece. There was a LOT going on, and the last thing I want is the pilot of the 767 I'm flying in trying to play airborne dodge ball with a barely visible toy drone the size of a laptop computer coming at his windscreen at a closing speed of over 300 knots while trying to land in even the best of conditions.
I was quite active in flying radio controlled planes by age 12. I dont know how much colossal stupidity you embraced by age 14 (I'm starting to wonder), but personally I knew better than to fly my r/c planes (drones werent around yet) in a manner that would interfere with an airliner, or even something as small as a two seat Piper for that matter. If you think this is nothing more than "a couple of 14 year olds pratting about like lads do" (your words), and that we should collectively sit back and chuckle and mumble "oh well kids will be kids" or embrace some such attitude, perhaps its your own perception of what could result from all of this that needs further examining. This isnt "lynching people whose views dont coincide with his own", its not wanting idiots attempting the "mild inconvenience" (your words) of interfering with the operation of a major airport, transporting thousands of people a day, at the potential cost of bringing down a $200,000,000 airliner and murdering 150+ passengers because, well, kids will be kids.
If you're going to label an entire country of millions of people as "mental" from a few people posturing on an internet forum, perhaps you arent as different as those you are lamenting. And once whoever is flying drones in a flight path in close proximity to airliners successfully (or even accidentally, out of their own horrific stupidity, kids being kids and all) brings down a plane and disrupts the lives of hundreds of people, and the shock wave that will affect air transportation industry literally worldwide, you might have a slight change of attitude about how to handle the perpetrators, no matter what their age or intentions were, and I'm not too confident your reaction wont mirror some of those you disparage here. Whatever. I've read enough of your post here.
Given that you're talking about someone else's country, rather than your own oh-so-utterly-perfect republic, maybe you might do us the courtesy of engaging your brain before opening your big fat unthinking gob!
Right back at ya. You're the one acting like a fruitcake here.
I have only landed a handful of planes in my life. Landing a Cessna 172 in a 20 mph crosswind caused me to ruin at least one pair of underwear. I had the honor of trying to land a 767 in a simulator at the airport I worked at, and in the six minutes I sat in the captain's chair trying to bring this beast down in one piece (I failed), it didnt take much to figure out that someone trying to juggle eight bowling balls while skydiving blindfolded through a thunderstorm with 100 angry wasps in his pants has more free time to contemplate life than a pilot trying to get an airliner down in one piece. There was a LOT going on, and the last thing I want is the pilot of the 767 I'm flying in trying to play airborne dodge ball with a barely visible toy drone the size of a laptop computer coming at his windscreen at a closing speed of over 300 knots while trying to land in even the best of conditions.
I was quite active in flying radio controlled planes by age 12. I dont know how much colossal stupidity you embraced by age 14 (I'm starting to wonder), but personally I knew better than to fly my r/c planes (drones werent around yet) in a manner that would interfere with an airliner, or even something as small as a two seat Piper for that matter. If you think this is nothing more than "a couple of 14 year olds pratting about like lads do" (your words), and that we should collectively sit back and chuckle and mumble "oh well kids will be kids" or embrace some such attitude, perhaps its your own perception of what could result from all of this that needs further examining. This isnt "lynching people whose views dont coincide with his own", its not wanting idiots attempting the "mild inconvenience" (your words) of interfering with the operation of a major airport, transporting thousands of people a day, at the potential cost of bringing down a $200,000,000 airliner and murdering 150+ passengers because, well, kids will be kids.
If you're going to label an entire country of millions of people as "mental" from a few people posturing on an internet forum, perhaps you arent as different as those you are lamenting. And once whoever is flying drones in a flight path in close proximity to airliners successfully (or even accidentally, out of their own horrific stupidity, kids being kids and all) brings down a plane and disrupts the lives of hundreds of people, and the shock wave that will affect air transportation industry literally worldwide, you might have a slight change of attitude about how to handle the perpetrators, no matter what their age or intentions were, and I'm not too confident your reaction wont mirror some of those you disparage here. Whatever. I've read enough of your post here.
Originally Posted by Astro14
... If they can find the operator, I think that operator should be held responsible for everyone's expenses .... Millions of dollars in damages ...
Quite feasible under our U.S. legal system, at least in my state, as a simple intentional interference with contract. The airline has a contract to safely deliver passengers to a destination, reasonably on time, and drone operation disrupts it, causing damage. The droner's are unlikely to have more than a couple of quarters to rub together, unfortunately, and it is an intentional tort, so no policy of insurance would ever cover it; so, as a remedy / deterrent, it pales in comparison to summary execution.
... If they can find the operator, I think that operator should be held responsible for everyone's expenses .... Millions of dollars in damages ...
Quite feasible under our U.S. legal system, at least in my state, as a simple intentional interference with contract. The airline has a contract to safely deliver passengers to a destination, reasonably on time, and drone operation disrupts it, causing damage. The droner's are unlikely to have more than a couple of quarters to rub together, unfortunately, and it is an intentional tort, so no policy of insurance would ever cover it; so, as a remedy / deterrent, it pales in comparison to summary execution.
Originally Posted by SonofJoe
And for God's sake! Gatwick is now open again! People were mildly inconvenienced for 24 hours. No one died! No one ended up in hospital. Had it been 24 hours of fog, no one would have batted an eyelid.
You people really need to get a proper sense of perspective on life. This over-the-top outpouring of rabid outrage really makes you look a bunch of total fruitcakes!
Perspective here, would be useful.
It's not just a mild disruption as you claim. It's 120,000 people. It will take days, perhaps weeks, for the airport, and those people, to recover. Many of those folks will NOT be home for the holidays, or make their wedding, funeral, etc. because the holiday travel season has already filled airplanes.
This really doesn't look like lads having fun. I would buy that if the drone landed after a few minutes, or hours. This was a 30 hour disruption of service. That's a huge impact. Would've been worse at Heathrow, but it was a big impact.
Two important facts:
1. The police supplied anti-drone technology did not work. The UK MOD had to bring in their anti-drone technology (used against ISIL) to end the drone activity.
2. The operators here have demonstrated an inexpensive way to shut down an airport for extended periods.
This suggests the drones were not simple, lads having fun, equipment. And there are lots of people with bad intentions who have noticed the success of this operator. So, eco-terrorist, anarchist, angry person, whatever, now sees that they can be successful in "acting out" with a drone.
Which greatly increases the likelihood of it happening again.
Which greatly increases the risk to air travel*.
That should concern everyone.
*Drones are small enough that air traffic radar won't see them, and the tower certainly won't. It's frankly unlikely that an airline crew will see it a drone in time to avoid a collision. They're too small. Airplanes have survived hitting drones, but with damage. This is no guarantee that the next drone hit will be survivable. A catastrophic engine failure at 500 feet from drone impact could be more than the crew could handle. The reality of this risk is why Gatwick was shut down.
And for God's sake! Gatwick is now open again! People were mildly inconvenienced for 24 hours. No one died! No one ended up in hospital. Had it been 24 hours of fog, no one would have batted an eyelid.
You people really need to get a proper sense of perspective on life. This over-the-top outpouring of rabid outrage really makes you look a bunch of total fruitcakes!
Perspective here, would be useful.
It's not just a mild disruption as you claim. It's 120,000 people. It will take days, perhaps weeks, for the airport, and those people, to recover. Many of those folks will NOT be home for the holidays, or make their wedding, funeral, etc. because the holiday travel season has already filled airplanes.
This really doesn't look like lads having fun. I would buy that if the drone landed after a few minutes, or hours. This was a 30 hour disruption of service. That's a huge impact. Would've been worse at Heathrow, but it was a big impact.
Two important facts:
1. The police supplied anti-drone technology did not work. The UK MOD had to bring in their anti-drone technology (used against ISIL) to end the drone activity.
2. The operators here have demonstrated an inexpensive way to shut down an airport for extended periods.
This suggests the drones were not simple, lads having fun, equipment. And there are lots of people with bad intentions who have noticed the success of this operator. So, eco-terrorist, anarchist, angry person, whatever, now sees that they can be successful in "acting out" with a drone.
Which greatly increases the likelihood of it happening again.
Which greatly increases the risk to air travel*.
That should concern everyone.
*Drones are small enough that air traffic radar won't see them, and the tower certainly won't. It's frankly unlikely that an airline crew will see it a drone in time to avoid a collision. They're too small. Airplanes have survived hitting drones, but with damage. This is no guarantee that the next drone hit will be survivable. A catastrophic engine failure at 500 feet from drone impact could be more than the crew could handle. The reality of this risk is why Gatwick was shut down.
Originally Posted by Win
Originally Posted by Astro14
... If they can find the operator, I think that operator should be held responsible for everyone's expenses .... Millions of dollars in damages ...
Quite feasible under our U.S. legal system, at least in my state, as a simple intentional interference with contract. The airline has a contract to safely deliver passengers to a destination, reasonably on time, and drone operation disrupts it, causing damage. The droner's are unlikely to have more than a couple of quarters to rub together, unfortunately, and it is an intentional tort, so no policy of insurance would ever cover it; so, as a remedy / deterrent, it pales in comparison to summary execution.
While my "summary execution" comment was intended as rhetoric to convey outrage, I am deeply concerned about deterrence.
Imagine that bricks are thrown at cars on the road you drive every day. Just "lads" "pratting about" I'm certain. It lasts for 30 hours with the Police unable to stop the activity.
The highway would be shut down.
And you would want them caught and future brick throwers discouraged.
The drone risk is much greater than thrown bricks because of the circumstances, impact velocity, number of people, etc.
So, since our drone operators in this case are undeterred by the existing law, what would work to deter them in the future? Given that some people are willing to die to make a political statement, it may already be too late to discourage future drone interruptions (and potential fatal crashes) as a means of political statement.
Originally Posted by Astro14
... If they can find the operator, I think that operator should be held responsible for everyone's expenses .... Millions of dollars in damages ...
Quite feasible under our U.S. legal system, at least in my state, as a simple intentional interference with contract. The airline has a contract to safely deliver passengers to a destination, reasonably on time, and drone operation disrupts it, causing damage. The droner's are unlikely to have more than a couple of quarters to rub together, unfortunately, and it is an intentional tort, so no policy of insurance would ever cover it; so, as a remedy / deterrent, it pales in comparison to summary execution.
While my "summary execution" comment was intended as rhetoric to convey outrage, I am deeply concerned about deterrence.
Imagine that bricks are thrown at cars on the road you drive every day. Just "lads" "pratting about" I'm certain. It lasts for 30 hours with the Police unable to stop the activity.
The highway would be shut down.
And you would want them caught and future brick throwers discouraged.
The drone risk is much greater than thrown bricks because of the circumstances, impact velocity, number of people, etc.
So, since our drone operators in this case are undeterred by the existing law, what would work to deter them in the future? Given that some people are willing to die to make a political statement, it may already be too late to discourage future drone interruptions (and potential fatal crashes) as a means of political statement.
Yeah, I would buy the "Its just boys being boys" thing if this was, you know, maybe a couple hours after school one day. 30 hours would mean likely multiple people with shifts, or maybe one person with a drug habit. If its the former then this was planned, the latter would mean probably just a deranged addict.
Oh, I know, my comparison of civil remedy versus summary execution was meant to be tongue in cheek, but stuff like that doesn't come across well in text format ...
I don't know how the legal system will deal with this; it is not well suited to stopping stuff before it happens because we believe ( rightly, in my view ) in freedom, and it is a mixed bag at remedying stuff afterwards, especially since you can't fix dead or disfigured ...
It's not just airplanes that are at risk - someone could put one through the windscreen of a Greyhound going down the highway taking out the driver, or a tractor trailer rig, the possibilities are just endless ...
A completed event would almost surely be treated as murder, and, in my state, two ( I think ) or more in one incident is capital, making it execution eligible, so it could be an execution situation, but a long way from summary ...
I don't know how the legal system will deal with this; it is not well suited to stopping stuff before it happens because we believe ( rightly, in my view ) in freedom, and it is a mixed bag at remedying stuff afterwards, especially since you can't fix dead or disfigured ...
It's not just airplanes that are at risk - someone could put one through the windscreen of a Greyhound going down the highway taking out the driver, or a tractor trailer rig, the possibilities are just endless ...
A completed event would almost surely be treated as murder, and, in my state, two ( I think ) or more in one incident is capital, making it execution eligible, so it could be an execution situation, but a long way from summary ...
Looks like we've been unlocked...
Latest from The Beeb is that a man & a woman have been arrested. Hopefully that's the end of this thing (until the next time that is!)...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-46657505
Latest from The Beeb is that a man & a woman have been arrested. Hopefully that's the end of this thing (until the next time that is!)...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-46657505
4WD
$50 site donor 2024
I found a couple more write ups but seems too early for any details on the suspects ... No picture of the drone either ?
Originally Posted by 4WD
I found a couple more write ups but seems too early for any details on the suspects ... No picture of the drone either ?
Nothing new beyond the two arrests. Don't expect too much by way of information while The Police interview the suspects. They'll take their time trying to ascertain the motive behind the incident & whether this was genuinely malicious, attention seeking or just plain old fashioned stupidity.
I found a couple more write ups but seems too early for any details on the suspects ... No picture of the drone either ?
Nothing new beyond the two arrests. Don't expect too much by way of information while The Police interview the suspects. They'll take their time trying to ascertain the motive behind the incident & whether this was genuinely malicious, attention seeking or just plain old fashioned stupidity.
4WD
$50 site donor 2024
For sure ... I work with enough Brits and read stuff on/in BA flights/BA lounges ...
Here you are! Not ISIS militants. Not Muslim terrorists. Not Bad Uncle Vlad's little green men. Not even two spotty 14 year olds taking a break from twanging the one string banjo. The Gatwick drone culprits are....Mr & Mrs Boring Suburbia!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/22/gatwick-drone-identities-arrested-couple-revealed/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/22/gatwick-drone-identities-arrested-couple-revealed/
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