Pilots call for urgent action after drone incident at Gatwick
Pilots are calling for more action to prevent a drone causing an airline disaster after an incident at London Gatwick yesterday.
The airport was forced to close its runway twice – for nine minutes and five minutes – and to cancel and divert flights when a drone was flown too close to it.
Sussex Police are investigating the incidents, which happened between 18:10 and 18:19 and again from 18:36 to 18:41 local time.
Pilots association BALPA is demanding that more preventative steps are taken after a rise in near misses involving drones.
It’s calling for better education for users and high profile prosecutions for offenders.
BALPA flight safety specialist Steve Landells said: "Yet another incident at Gatwick involving drones shows that the threat of drones being flown near manned-aircraft must be addressed before we see a disaster.
"Drones can be great fun, and have huge commercial potential, but with a significant increase in near-misses in recent years it seems not everyone who is flying them either know or care about the rules that are in place for good reason.
"While we take no issue with people who fly their drones in a safe and sensible manner, some people who fly them near airports or densely populated areas are behaving dangerously.
"We believe a collision, particularly with a helicopter, has the potential be catastrophic.
"Measures should be put in place that will allow the police to identify and locate anyone who flies a drone in an irresponsible way.
"Owing to the huge numbers of drones being sold, more technological solutions will undoubtedly be required to address this problem and should be mandated.
"These should include, amongst other things, geofencing as standard and a system whereby the drone transmits enough data for the police to locate the operator when it is flown in a dangerous manner.
"If the user has endangered an aircraft, we would like to see the culprit prosecuted; endangering an aircraft has a maximum sentence of five years in prison."
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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