Drone Sighting Halts Departures at Heathrow Airport

As the article says, it is surprising how easy and cheap it is to shut down a world-class airport and disrupt 100,000's of people. They haven't even caught the last person.

Re: Drone Sighting Halts Departures at Heathrow Airport

#6

Post by testplzignore » Tue, Jan 08, 2019, 6:37 PM UTC

> The airport said it had spent several million pounds to purchase the equipment.

I feel like this is a problem some smart people could solve quickly if they were asked, similar to the healthcare.gov situation. Ask some MIT students to come up with a solution over a weekend and I bet they would deliver.

Knocking a slow moving object out of the sky is literally not rocket science.

Re: Drone Sighting Halts Departures at Heathrow Airport

#7

Post by rtkwe » Tue, Jan 08, 2019, 6:37 PM UTC

pwaivers wrote: post #3

Again?

Last time it was Gatwick south of London. Hopefully this shutdown doesn't get extended because the government drones get mistaken for continued sightings of the original drone (or copycats) like happened at Gatwick.

Re: Drone Sighting Halts Departures at Heathrow Airport

#8

Post by randyrand » Tue, Jan 08, 2019, 6:37 PM UTC

Part of me wonders if this is a long term problem with solving - causing so much annoyance with so little effort - or if this is just a fad. Time will tell. One thing is for sure, it's very easy to cause a lot of harm. Much of our society relies on assuming people are good. Sabotaging infrastructure is as easy as loosening or cutting bolts on a bridge.

Re: Drone Sighting Halts Departures at Heathrow Airport

#9

Post by growlist » Tue, Jan 08, 2019, 6:40 PM UTC

testplzignore wrote: post #6

> The airport said it had spent several million pounds to purchase the equipment. I feel like this is a problem some smart people could solve quickly if they were asked, similar to the healthcare.gov situation. Ask some MIT students to come up with a solution over a weekend and I bet they would deliver. Knocking a slow moving object out of the sky is literally not rocket science.

> Knocking a slow moving object out of the sky is literally not rocket science.

But perhaps doing it in a way that doesn't shower the runway with dangerous debris, is?

Re: Drone Sighting Halts Departures at Heathrow Airport

#10

Post by pj_mukh » Tue, Jan 08, 2019, 6:40 PM UTC

Just as in Gatwick before this, the police and the airport are not able to produce even grainy footage of a drone that is supposedly "buzzing" the tower.

Gatwick reported "67 sightings", but couldn't confirm if some (all?) were their own drones [1]. And now Parliament is tabling new powers for the police [2]. Was there ever any evidence presented that there was ever a drone present? Is there any evidence that this was actually a drone at Heathrow?

Are we sure this wasn't a plastic bag again [3]?

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/29/gatwick-drone-si...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/08/police-ha...

[3] https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/22/11486256/drone-collision-...

P.S: I'm insinuating terrible preparedness to verify drone sightings leading to wonky regulations, not a conspiratorial power grab