Authorities say they have identified persons of interest in the UK travel outrage after a further drone sighting again closed Gatwick airport Friday evening.
Flights had resumed Friday morning local time but were suspended for over an hour while authorities investigated the latest incident.
“Airfield movements were suspended while we investigated this as safety remains our main priority,’’ Gatwick management said. “The military measures we have in place at the airport have provided us with reassurance necessary to re-open our airfield.”
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The military had been called in to deal with a drone causing travel chaos at London’s Gatwick Airport in what has been characterized as a deliberate act of sabotage.
Gatwick remained closed between Wednesday night and Friday morning, disrupting the pre-Christmas travel of more than 120, 000 people, after drones had been repeatedly flown over the airfield.
Insurers are likely to be hit with a deluge of claims as a result of the closures and the Civil Aviation Authority warned passengers they would not qualify for additional compensation under EU rules.
The CAA said that it considered the drone attack an “exceptional circumstance”.
“In such circumstances, airlines are not obliged to pay financial compensation to passengers affected by the disruption,’’ it said.
However, it said that EU261 regulations meant that those who no longer wished to fly could get a refund and suggested those that still wanted to travel contact their carrier.
Sussex police are hunting for the person or persons responsible and have warned the offense attracts up to five years in jail. They are believed to be using an industrial category drone and operating it at a distance.
Sussex Police Assistant Chief Constable Steve Barry told the BBC “persons of interest” had been identified during the investigation.
Barry said there was no evidence of an involvement of a foreign power, but described the drone activity as “really high-end criminal behavior”.
He said environmental activism was one line of inquiry.
“We’re working on the assumption that there was more than one drone operating around Gatwick in the last 48 hours,” he said.
“In terms of how many perpetrators, there’s a number of lines of inquiry, there’s an ongoing investigation, we’re pursuing that trying to find out who has been responsible for this really malicious criminal behavior
Apologetic Gatwick chief executive Stewart Wingate earlier said he shared the anger and frustration over the inconvenience caused by “this criminal behavior”.
“This is a highly targeted activity which has been designed to close the airport and bring maximum disruption in the run-up to Christmas,’’ Wingate said.
“We are working very closely with the police and the security services to try to resolve this for passengers.
“We hope passengers appreciate that we must and will always prioritize their safety over everything else. “
Wingate also noted the wider challenge posed by the disruption for the aviation industry.
“Although not for today, these events obviously highlight a wider strategic challenge for aviation in this country which we need to address together with speed – the aviation industry, Government and all the other relevant authorities,” Wingate said.
“It cannot be right that drones can close a vital part of our national infrastructure in this way. This is obviously a relatively new technology and we need to think through together the right solutions to make sure it cannot happen again.”
