Gatwick Airport Closure - Environmental action?

[Kyriakos]

-If you'd excuse the @Arakhor esque pseudo-joke, i would say that drones are criminally underused

 

[Broken_Erika]

Gatwick drones: Two arrested over flight disruption

Two people have been arrested in connection with a string of drone sightings which brought Gatwick Airport to a standstill.

Sussex Police said it made the arrests at about 22:00 GMT on Friday.

Flights from Gatwick were grounded for more than a day after the devices were seen near the runway.

The force said "pro-active" investigations into "the criminal use of drones" continued, and urged the public to contact it with information.

Police have yet to disclose the ages and genders of those arrested and where they were apprehended.

Supt James Collis said officers remained at the airport, ready to "detect and mitigate further incursions" by deploying a range of tactics.

He asked passengers and people living nearby to remain vigilant and report any suspicions.

"Every line of inquiry will remain open to us until we are confident that we have mitigated further threats to the safety of passengers," he added.

Gatwick reopened on Friday morning after dozens of flights were disrupted, affecting more than 100,000 travellers.

The runway was closed again for a short time after a further confirmed sighting at 17:10.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-46657505

 

[Commodore]

but disrupting society is sort of what protests are all about in the first place.

But it's all about how you disrupt society. If you do it in a way that hurts the people you are trying to get on your side, then your protest is doomed to fail.

 

[Hrothbern]

The two people arrested on suspicion of the “criminal use of drones” that caused severe disruption at Gatwick airport this week are a 47-year-old man and a 54-year-old woman, both from Crawley in West Sussex, police have said.
Crawley is bordering the Gatwick airport.

In October there were protest against expansion of Gatwick with another airstrip because of noise, air pollution and a doubling of air and roads traffic. And ofc politically picked up as Climate.
Gatwick was (is ?) in heavy competition with Heathrow (the pet of Boris Johnson). Financials models that calculate the benefit 60 years deep in time first favored Heathrow, and the last update favored Gatwick.
In how far that all, the math and the need for expansion is realistic considering Brexit and Climate ?

Anyway
IF... if these two locals from Crawley have been the cause, the action is a "not in my backyard disruption" against the commercial interests of the Gatwick owners.
~~ disruptions of locals versus disruptions of tourists

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...-new-analysis-shows-gatwick-expansion-better/
https://www.keithtaylormep.org.uk/n...ort-protest-against-plans-expansion-back-door
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...ne-turmoil-pair-arrested-are-local-police-say

 

[Kyriakos]

Hm. If all it takes is one drone, then the future looks bleak.
Ban drones. And knives!
Αnd h2so4.

 

[Hrothbern]

Hm. If all it takes is one drone, then the future looks bleak.
Ban drones. And knives!
Αnd h2so4.

The Drone Wars !

It is I think indeed a real nuisance.
These drones were apparently still controlled by a human, but imagine a little bit of AI and a GPS, and that drone is immune for signal jamming and can disturb until shot down or caught.

I think it is better to have a permit and registration system like with guns and strict laws on possession of unregistered drones.
At least to reduce the amount of the wide range of abuses.
(no one will stop the Cyber Wars)

 

[Kyriakos]

I think it is only a matter of time until a new breivic uses drones to kill scores of people.
Not that a ban would be easy - at least not before such an event.

 

[warpus]

But it's all about how you disrupt society. If you do it in a way that hurts the people you are trying to get on your side, then your protest is doomed to fail.

It's a fine balance. You need to get those people's attentions in the first place. In Poland we did that by more or less shutting down society. It affected everyone's lives, but most people were sort of in agreement that the Russians have to go

 

[EnglishEdward]

I think it is better to have a permit and registration system like with guns and strict laws on possession of unregistered drones.

This is I understand the lawyer's and administrator's preferred approach.

But it won't work against determined criminals and terrorists who disregard law.

The genie drone is out of the bottle, so active physical counter measures are required.

 

[Old Hippy]

think of all the experts that have enlightened us about how to protect our airports over the last few days...

 

[AmazonQueen]

This is I understand the lawyer's and administrator's preferred approach.

But it won't work against determined criminals and terrorists who disregard law.

The genie drone is out of the bottle, so active physical counter measures are required.

Just like with guns both go together. The more legal guns or drones are around the more stolen ones will be around.

 

[Live trash can]

This case seems to have dropped out of the media in Norway. Whilst I am still curious...

 

[Kyriakos]

Lol.
Would have been cool if someone tricked the police into flying their own drones there and causing the airport to close.
Though it probably is just more police being cretins, without an evil genius behind.

 

[Cheetah]

So what you're all telling me is that a bunch of UFOs closed Gatwick?

 

[innonimatu]

Yes, I wondered whether the sale of Gatwick airport might be tied to this. Negotiations over the price were ongoing even as this crisis happened. Many millions more or less in that price were at stake.

Vinci Airports is one of the major corporations thats have been getting financing from the European Central Bank. How's that for fair business competition and no state aid rules within the EU? Why, it seems that the Commission only objects about it when it is the state itself doing the investing... can't keep having common use infrastructure that are not profit centers for some corporation can we?

 

[EnglishEdward]

So much for the Remainer line that the Leave vote would prevent foreign investment in the UK.

And I am sure that that french corporate group will be joyously looking forward to the EU Commission
ruthlessly imposing a no flights from Britain ban rule on NDE day, thereby making its investment go belly up.

 

[Silurian]

The 51% stake in Gatwick was sold at a discount to valuations earlier in the year.

It is unlikely that this incident is related to the sale.

 

[brennan]

This damn fool farce has illustrated a number of contemporary issues:

- The utter incompetence of the authorities in dealing with a problem
- That the media take every scrap of news and run with it, showing zero scepticism about any of it
- The use of the term 'admit' as proof that something said without any real evidence must be true
- The well established habit that the sheeple display of jumping to unwarranted conclusions

 

[Silurian]

I not sure that the police have the all the skills necessary to investigate this.
They have been told it must have been a drone, it would be very embarrassing if there were no drones.
They do not normally have to deal with reports of aerial phenomena so they will not be able to spot flaws in the reports.

 

[Kyriakos]

So, will the local who was held for 36 hours, despite having an alibi, be suing?