Military removes anti-drone hardware from Gatwick airport

Thursday, January 3, 2019

The Ministry of Defence stated that military hardware deployed to stop drones that disrupted flights at Gatwick Airport before Christmas was now withdrawn.

During the three days of travel disruption caused by the drone sightings army was sent before Christmas to tackle it.

There were mass disruption to hundreds of thousands of passengers over three days due to multiple drone sightings at the airfield which further prompted Sussex Police to call in army to bring an end to the travel chaos.

Between 19 and 31 December around 1,000 flights were grounded as Gatwick was forced to close for 33 hour and after receiving assistance from the armed forces the airport reopened.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman on Wednesday confirmed that the military capability had been withdrawn from Gatwick.On receiving a request for support the armed forces is ever-ready to assist.

On Gatwick’s roof the army’s Israeli –developed Drone Dome system was thought to have been deployed.  The equipment is known detecting and jamming communication between a drone and its operator.

To identify and track targets the system has a range of several miles and avails the use of four radars to provide a 360-degree detection.

There were 115 reports of sightings in the area received by the Sussex Police constable Giles York. As per the reports some drones in the area had involvement from the police’s own craft but he affirmed that a drone was flying near the airport’s runway during the period of disruption.

To find the culprit a blank has been drawn by the police and later a couple arrested on the basis of disruption was released without charge.

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