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IMO the odds of this being a mass hysteria event are at least 3:1 versus an actual drone being intentionally flown to disrupt air traffic. I would say it’s les
by zaroth 8y ago
IMO the odds of this being a mass hysteria event are at least 3:1 versus an actual drone being intentionally flown to disrupt air traffic.
I would say it’s less likely an intentional misinformation campaign to get new police powers, but even that is more likely than an intentional drone attack, again just my opinion.
It’s absolutely incumbent on the authorities to provide incontrovertible evidence of an illegal drone. The fact that they launched a bunch of their own drones in response is sheer lunacy.
- tim333 8y agoI have a first hand report from someone who works at gatwick that there was a drone hovering near the control tower for a while but I'll admit there seems a shortage of photos.
- dpark 8y agoThe question posed is not whether anyone reported seeing drones, but whether the reports are accurate. The fact that you got a first-hand report personally doesn't mean it's any more reliable than the first-hand reports the police received. The claim that they saw it hovering "for a while" actually makes this particular claim less believable. They witnessed it hovering by the control tower for an extended period of time but never bothered to get their phone out?
- wokwokwok 8y agoThis is what I find astonishing. If a car is on fire in a normal street, half the people just stop to take photos or start live streaming it (this happened in Melbourne recently). How did no one pull out their phone and take any pictures? People takes photos of airports and planes all the time because it’s so different from day-to-day stuff. It seems implausibly unlikely that both no one took photos and no one shared them online.
- fiddlerwoaroof 8y agoAren’t ATCs not allowed to have their cellphones in the tower?
- dpark 8y agoThey have to be off. But Controllers still Snapchat at times. https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/268495-report-air-traffic-controllers-disciplined-for-snapchatting-on-duty https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/268495-rep... But more to the point, the poster I was replying to did not claim that the witness was working in the control tower. Merely that they observed a drone hovering near the control tower. Of course, they might have been far enough away that they couldn't capture a photo. That would indicate that they likely were far enough away that they couldn't definitively ID a drone, too.