Gatwick chaos as drones causes runway to close

I was stranded on the 20th last month waited for 3 days till I flew here to my other neck of the woods, Salzburg for Xmas and new year ...so still on Austrian German border with my partner.

Read about Heathrow incident, thankfully it was temp as my aunts flying off to HK tonight so keeping track of news from here.

Conflicting reports from LGW incident ...was it or was it not a drone ?

I also get tired of lecturing drone owners who mates of mates in my U.K. eco of the woods ...who when asking me for advice, I refer them to the CAA..and it gets thrown back in my face. Their arrogance ( a lot are games and computer programmers who should know better ).

Cheers
 
This is going to become a massive problem in the future. What we've seen so far (or not seen, reports seem to vary) have just been relatively large enthusiast machines flying typically line-of-sight via remote control.

Most people here will have already seen the experimental autonomous swarm work going on in universities around the world, typically with very small drones that are nevertheless able to carry a small payload.

They're usually controlled via small radio mesh networks currently which may provide a vulnerability but the potential is certainly there for someone to cause a disaster for a large aircraft on takeoff with a set and forget box of drones.

Even if you just fitted them with ultra bright leds and had them fly randomly at the ends of runways they present a potential risk that would certainly shut down commercial airports, possibly for days or even weeks.
 
Cost assessment:

EasyJet says the incident affected around 82,000 passengers and over 400 cancelled flights.

In its first-quarter figures, for the three months ending 31 December, it puts the revenue impact at £5 million.

But EasyJet adds that the cost of the drone situation, which includes customer welfare expenses, amounted to £10 million.

“There has been a one-off cost impact from this incident but underlying cost progress is in line with expectations,” says chief executive Johan Lundgren.
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Source (FlightGlobal.com): https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/easyjet-puts-figure-on-gatwick-drone-disruption-cost-455171/
 

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