Heathrow temporarily suspended all departures on Tuesday due to drone sighting

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

 After a drone was spotted near the Heathrow airport runway on Tuesday, all departures were temporarily suspended by the airport.

The Britain’s busiest airport announced suspension before 6 pm on Tuesday  the suspension of takeoffs from runway 27R.

While Chris Grayling, the transport secretary was ready to deploy the same anti-drone military technology used at Gatwick if required.

However, after 30 minutes the airport reopened and passengers were made alert of the delays in the rest of the evening.

An airport spokesperson mentioned that they were responding to the drone sighting at Heathrow and they were working in collaboration with the Met Police to maintain safety.

The departures were stopped due to precautionary measures. However, during the closure at the west London airport monitoring app FlightRadar24 showed that planes continued to land.

Grayling was in contact with the home secretary and defence secretary and mentioned that the military was preparing to deploy the equipment used at Gatwick at Heathrow quickly if it was urgently needed.

Flights of British Airways scheduled for departures to Manchester, Belfast, Dublin, Bucharest, Zurich and Vancouver  were delayed by around one hour.

Due to unrelated problems with weather in Continental Europe and disruption arrivals will continue way beyond midnight.

In the vicinity of the Heathrow airport the Metropolitan Police received reports of drone sighting and due to precautionary measures the Heathrow airport stopped departures. Currently, investigations were on.

FlightRadar24 showed that flights began to take off less than an hour later and after the runway was opened a KLM 737 bound for Amsterdam was the first to leave.

Depending on the standard operating procedures and working with air traffic control departures out of Heathrow was resumed after a short suspension.

The situation was continuously monitored and the airport apologized the passengers who were affected by the disruption.

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