Above info was based on Sunday News “papers”
just looked on-line and both suspects were released this morning so the drones and operator(s) are still about……
Yes, so we were indeed lucky to get home last night to Gatwick 
I right away bought backup tickets (from Geneva) to Luton also (not too bad at £100 since clearly not many others had the same idea at an early point) since there is an easy train from Luton to Gatwick to collect the car. Heathrow and Stansted would have been a nightmare…
Drones have a good thermal signature (if you have a high-res thermal camera) but I gather the airport had only one heli with the camera, and the drone flyer just waited for it to land to refuel. Also the heli was easily tracked via its Mode S and a public website (not FR24 AFAIK) once you find out its reg, which is easy.
So these airports need to seriously get their act together. No Mode S, for a start…
There is almost no way to shoot a moving drone down, so the solution will lie in tracking it and then going after it. The owner will want it back because it is sure to contain a speck of his DNA, not to mention other traceable stuff.
Also law-breaking drone flyers are well known within their communities. There is a long tradition of dodgy flying; much of it on Youtube. Probably quite a lot of people have a pretty good idea who this was.
Looks like Police & Journalists did have the same shameful quality of evidences in this news affair: “someone flies big RCs/drones and live near Gatwick”, “yes we got him”…
The whole handling was/still a big fiasco for all stakeholders, but you can mainly blame it on airport/airline operations, it is not the first time Gatwick got into large scale “drone crisis” with no mitigants yet (they are used to deal with runway changes and localized weather, why not drones?)
BBC:
officers had found a damaged drone near the airport.
He said they would be working with the “forensic opportunities that the drone presents”.
Peter wrote:
officers had found a damaged drone near the airport.
He said they would be working with the “forensic opportunities that the drone presents”.
If it’s a DJI drone then tracing it back to the original purchaser is easy. Of course doesn’t mean that person was the operator on the occasion, but the trail should be reasonably easy to follow, If it’s a home-made one then that gets a lot harder.
Have to say I feel for that couple who had their names and pic plastered all over the press (well, parts of it), while it didn’t seem likely they were the culprits (the guy’s boss being adamant that he was at a worksite). I suspect they will change their hobby to raising hamsters….
Have to say I feel for that couple who had their names and pic plastered all over the press . . .
Just like the sad case of the murder of Joanna Yeates in 2010 (also around Christmas) where her innocent landlord, Christopher Jefferies, was ‘named and shamed” by the media.
Eventually, Jefferies accepted “substantial” damages for defamation from The Sun, the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror, the Daily Record, the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, the Daily Star and The Scotsman in connection with their coverage of his arrest. In an interview following Tabak’s (the real muderer) conviction, Jefferies commented: “It has taken up a whole year virtually of my life, that period of time has meant that everything else that I would normally be doing has been in abeyance.”
Afterwards the police said “never again will we disclose a name to the press”!
I hope also this time good lawyers will successfully sue for compensation and the ‘leak’ exposed.
“If it’s a DJI drone then tracing it back to the original purchaser is easy.”
So if intending to use a DJI drone for illegal purposes, such as drugs into prison yard, steal the complete set up in a burglary, or mugging.
PS How seriously would police take a call where only a drone was stolen? Value?
Maoraigh wrote:
Value
The more serious ones start at about $ 1.500 and go up to about $ 8.000 and beyond. That’s in the US, no idea about pricing in the UK.
All in all, this incident fits in well with most other “drone incidents”: 100% hysteria.
LeSving wrote:
All in all, this incident fits in well with most other “drone incidents”: 100% hysteria.
Ok, so what are we seeing in the videos?
