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Drone Sighting Halts Departures at Heathrow Airport
- pwaivers 8y agoAgain?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- pwaivers 8y agoAs 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.
- AnimalMuppet 8y agoThey made two arrests for Gatwick.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- peaktechisnow 8y agoand then they released them
- jonas21 8y agoThe people who were arrested had nothing to do with it, and were released (after being subjected to 36 hours of questioning) [1]. [1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/23/gatwick-drone-arrested-couple-released-without-charge/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/23/gatwick-drone-ar...
- duaoebg 8y agoNot sure if arresting innocent people is any kind of progress
- quasse 8y agoThey arrested two people that they later admitted had nothing to do with the event in question. [1] What counterpoint are you making here? [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-46709353 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-46709353
- AnimalMuppet 8y agoWhat counterpoint am I making? I thought that it was perfectly obvious - that they had caught the previous person(s). I had not heard that they released them - I kind of quit paying attention once they made the arrests.
- frereubu 8y agoInnocent until proven guilty, etc.
- morsch 8y agoMaybe this anecdote will convince you to pay attention in the future.
- dingoegret 8y agoPeople aren't just guilty because the TV man said so
- Rebelgecko 8y agoA couple was detained for 36 hours before being let go with no charges and an apology from the police.
- eponeponepon 8y agoFor clarity, the two people arrested were released without charge. Although not before the press had smeared their names and faces across the whole country.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- whoisjuan 8y agoDidn't they say, that maybe it was their own drones? https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2018/1229/1019460-gatwick-drone-police/ https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2018/1229/1019460-gatwick-dron...
- president 8y agoEssentially a real-world denial-of-service attack.
- jwbensley 8y agoNo, 1 million people didn't try to get on the planes at the same time.
- Sol- 8y agoSeems like this was a thing before drones too, though. Call in a fake bomb threat, leave an empty bag suspiciously lying around, etc. All things that could asymmetrically disrupt the airport. Granted, the chance to get caught is smaller with drones, but it's still fairly risky. I guess the only defense here are publicized arrests to dissuade the "prankster" category of attacker and the fact that statistically only very few people are crazy enough in the first place to try such an attack.
- testplzignore 8y ago> 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.
- djohnston 8y agoisn't it kind of rocket science?
- growlist 8y ago> 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?
- adossi 8y agoDon't they already shoot Canada geese at airports because they're such a nuisance? I imagine a similar tactic could be used for drones
- _underfl0w_ 8y agoThey also hire people to covertly shoot the little birds that get stuck flying around inside Walmart (B&Q, $megacorp, etc.) Met a guy while he was on the clock doing that, in fact.
- JStanton617 8y agoOr just some annoyed passengers with a roll of toilet paper? https://imgur.com/gallery/0b4wF3V https://imgur.com/gallery/0b4wF3V
- United857 8y agoThe tricky part I'm guessing is doing it safely without collateral damage, especially in a crowded area like an airport. A bullet or other kinetic object could do damage if it falls back down to earth. A directed energy/RF weapon could possibly fry other electronics in aircraft nearby as well.
- randyrand 8y agoPart 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.
- rdtsc 8y ago> Sabotaging infrastructure is as easy as loosening or cutting bolts on a bridge. The issue there is that someone has to walk up a bridge with tools and start loosening bolts. Drones are somewhat remote, in that they could hide in the bushes some distance away. And most of all, I can see drone operators thinking "it's fun" as they are not damaging or deliberately flying into planes. It's wrong of course, but in their minds they don't see it equivalent to cutting bolts on a bridge.
- beezischillin 8y agoThankfully a lot of more modern drones have no-fly maps implemented so you're forced to download it and you can't mess around there. But for years it's been pilot etiquette not to do dumb things to mess it up for everyone else, I guess that's slowly ending, unfortunately. I hope most countries will still try and be sensible about their drone laws. Mine isn't: you're required to register your drone and tell them a month ahead (!!!) where you're going to fly, even if it's in the dead middle of nowhere, which is why people ignore all of it. The other thing is that drones are exceedingly hard to regulate because the barrier of entry to just building your own is becoming lower and lower. Anyhow, enough of my rambling. It's really sad to see things take such a negative turn for everyone involved (both drone pilots and regular people).
- atombender 8y agoThere's also the related observation, demonstrated in Eric Frank Russell's Wasp [1], that merely leaving behind the signs of tampering is enough to cause fear and panic. In the novel, which is written as a deliciously dark satire in the vein of Kurt Vonnegut Jr., a single agent causes havoc in a foreign country by subtly creating evidence of a mass sabotage by an underground guerilla force: Spreading rumours, distributing provocative stickers and posters, leaking assasination target lists, strategically leaving surveillance equipment to be discovered by the authorities, and so on. He doesn't actually perform any acts of sabotage. If Wasp had been written in 2019, flying drones at airports would have fit right into the narrative. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasp_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasp_(novel)
- pj_mukh 8y agoJust 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-sightings-may-have-police-equipment-chief-constable/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/29/gatwick-drone-si... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/08/police-handed-new-anti-drone-powers-after-gatwick-disruption https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/08/police-ha... [3] https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/22/11486256/drone-collision-uk-plastic-bag 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
- porphyrogene 8y agoDoes Heathrow bear a resposibility to prove anything to you or any other random person on the internet? You seem to be insinuating some conspiracy by asking vague questions.
- vorpalhex 8y agoErr, yes, yes they do if it's going to be used as justification to pass sweeping new police powers.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- joemi 8y agoIsn't the responsibility on the law makers who are using the issue at the airport as justification, not the airport itself? Heathrow isn't somehow trying to pass laws themselves are they? (Caveat: Maybe I just don't understand how British law works?)
- eponeponepon 8y agoI kind of struggle to understand how there isn't enough equipment and electrical engineering expertise on site at a modern airport to pinpoint these drones really quickly - especially at Heathrow. Even a small drone surely makes a ton of radio noise just from its motors, no?
- bdamm 8y agoYes, but not at well defined frequencies, and it's competing with every other laptop fan, vacuum cleaner, refrigerator, sliding door, and electric stove as a source of RF noise.
- sschueller 8y agoIt really would not take long for the airport to launch a drone to look for the other one. Maybe a minute? They could have a experienced pilot on staff at the tower. Costs a lot less than shutting down the airport for hours. I would even say a skilled pilot with a trackable drone in communication with the tower could safely fly to investiage without a shutdown of the airport.
- bump-ladel 8y agoOnce the idea of alien UFOs became widespread, the number of reported cases rose. Once everybody has the idea that drones may be flying around airports, will people start misidentifying and reporting other phenomena as drones (causing chaos)?
- venantius 8y agoWhen can I buy travel insurance that covers “drones at the airport”?
- giarc 8y agoI think your comment is tongue in cheek, but I wonder if trip interruption insurance would cover this?
- fathead_glacier 8y agoUnfortunately no. According to the BBC [0] the Civil Aviation Authority considers a drone interference accident as an extraordinary circumstance. Therefore, the EU rules for compensation do not apply. However, it makes me wonder if and when third party insurance companies will start offering this as a service. [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46632302 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46632302
- AWildC182 8y agoTo those wondering why we can't just take down the drones, it's not as simple as a jammer or a shotgun. Jamming drones is a non starter for the most part. You can make a drone operate on just about any frequency you want and with modern equipment becoming more frequency agile, this will only get worse. A simple thought experiment would be a drone using GSM for video and control. Can you just jam all phones? Obviously not. Further, drones can fly without any command and control if they're configured correctly, just using GPS for guidance. Can you jam GPS at an airport where planes are breaking out of an overcast layer at 200ft AGL on a GPS approach? Nope. Kinetic approaches: projectiles need to come back down. Even heavy bird shot could damage the super thin skin on an airliner when falling back to earth. Also, net guns and similar options are way shorter range than you think. Birds of prey: stick your hand in a DJI rotor and report back. Now try an industrial drone. Come back when they re-attach all your fingers. Drones catching drones: you'll need continuous line of sight to be able to chase the thing around. This also assumes it's a quad and not a 100mph+ fixed wing drone. Might be feasible if you have an automated way of detecting and following the drone (future mm band radar?). Lasers: eye safety of the public and piloted aircraft.
- sjg007 8y agoTrain birds to chase drones.
- AWildC182 8y ago.....did you actually read the post?
- sailfast 8y agoSmaller scale SAMs with close range burst capabilities seem like they might avoid all of these issues, but tracking would be critical. Ideally the blast would at worst minorly damage but not crash an airliner and at best leave some small dents in aircraft skin but take down a smaller-scale drone. If you take your "reasons why not" logic too far, however, you end up asking "how do we take down an enemy jet" which, I mean, the air force has probably figured out by now. Why are drones more of a threat than large scale model jet aircraft? If we can't really avoid this then at some point we're going to need to react in a more measured way instead of flipping out and shutting down the airport.
- qwerty456127 8y agoDo they really have to be so paranoid about drones?
- pnw_hazor 8y agoYes. How else are they going to prevent plebes from lawfully owning them. note: will be buying my drone today before the US FAA gets any brights ideas.
- qwerty456127 8y agoWhy not just build one yourself when you really feel you want? Won't it be twice (or more) the fun? Isn't a previously bought one going to be equally illegal after such a "bright idea"? Be careful and have fun anyway.
- ohiovr 8y agoSomeone needs to invent a drone interceptor that just flys into another drone and ruins the props.
- nwah1 8y agoCould land on someone. My understanding is that a lot of the anti-drone defense systems being researched involve catching them with nets.
- xabaras 8y agoGreat way to DoS Airports...
- mimixco 8y agoAirbus has had drone defense tech for years. They can drop any drone out of the sky when it's miles from an airplane. http://fortune.com/2016/01/08/airbus-technology-disrupt-drones/ http://fortune.com/2016/01/08/airbus-technology-disrupt-dron... The poster here who claimed drones operate on "any frequency" is incorrect. Like any other radio device, radios in the drones and their controllers can only operate on limited frequencies which are known in advance.
- petre 8y agoThere's also an Israeli company that sells a drone defense device. It's like a portable gun and it grounds the drone safely. I'm not sure how safe it is to use it near an ATC tower though. Another Israeli company has an anti drone technology called Drone Dome that was supposedly deployed by the army at Gatwick during the incident. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_Dome https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_Dome
- DoctorOetker 8y ago1) If we could accurately detect and track drones, we can disregard the reports, or check with the detection system if there was a related near-detection at the reported location/line-of-sight 2) While there will be lot's of electrical motors throughout the airport, perhaps the airport and its infrastructure could be designed to support a 10 minute silence (causing delays etc). 3) Focussing on the electromotor driven propellers, the sound can be expected to have twice the frequency of the magnetic field (both the permanent magnet, and the applied electromagnet fields) since the propeller has 2 blades. It should be possible to use this correlation to filter out electromotor noise without blades. (So fan's will still contribute noise, but known fan noise, and electromotor fan noise of authorized equipment could be filtered out, or canceled) 4) A grid of microphones and magnetic field detectors would probably be necessary. 5) The system should probably be combined with other technologies like LIDAR etc