Drones over gatwick..

mmj_uk · 24 Dec 2018 at 17:29

By the time there's any sort of investigation the police willl have drawn up a bunch of statements from officers claiming that they spotted a drone over the runway heading in the direction from/towards where the couple lived.

mcast · 24 Dec 2018 at 17:30

Gatwick airport makes up drone story to annoy thousands of travelers and expose themselves to lawsuits or some dimwit flew a drone to annoy people?

StriderX · 24 Dec 2018 at 17:32

No, but the government is definitely in cover-up mode now, hoodwinked by a bunch of random folk calling in probably false reports. Farcical incompetent ****** government. Why anyone would believe Chris "**** the trains" Grayling is beyond me.

I bet they've gotten the police and Gatwick to sign NDA's by now.

mcast · 24 Dec 2018 at 17:38

Imagine the rage if an airliner went down with your family and the daily fail released the tapes warning of drones which the government chose to ignore.

Randomface74 · 24 Dec 2018 at 17:41

And the BBC have just stuck a photo of them on the news homepage.
Clearly no f's given about the couple.

bloodiedathame · 24 Dec 2018 at 17:41

Once again the UK has showed the world how ******* inept it is.

Rroff · 24 Dec 2018 at 17:43

mmj_uk said:
By the time there's any sort of investigation the police willl have drawn up a bunch of statements from officers claiming that they spotted a drone over the runway heading in the direction from/towards where the couple lived.

By all reports a number of members of the public reported seeing someone with a large drone which lead to the general area the people arrested lived with him having a previous incident report for a RC helicopter being a prime suspect from that area - which seems to be the long and short of any evidence and why they were picked up.

Minusorange · 24 Dec 2018 at 17:53

I still think it's all fake and done to distract from Brexit

Rroff · 24 Dec 2018 at 17:55

The timing is remarkably convenient.

chaparral · 24 Dec 2018 at 18:22

chaparral said:
And I not seen one picture or video of it

OK I take that back

h4rm0ny · 24 Dec 2018 at 18:34

Freakbro said:
67 official reports from a mixture of passengers, airport staff and police

I wouldn't put too much store in that, personally. If 67 people independently reported seeing something that would be significant. If you tell hundreds of people there's a drone 67 people who "saw something" is probably low!

Gerard · 24 Dec 2018 at 18:38

Minusorange said:
I still think it's all fake and done to distract from Brexit

Malevolence · 24 Dec 2018 at 18:46

How many times is that image going to be posted?

Bigpops · 24 Dec 2018 at 18:49

@chaparral All the same video. No identifiable landmarks, or a time code. Police even said they've been unable to obtain any footage and are relying on witness reports.

Gerard · 24 Dec 2018 at 18:57

Malevolence said:
How many times is that image going to be posted?

Several more times at least.

Malt_Vinegar · 24 Dec 2018 at 19:02

Now I start to think about it more..

Could it be corporate? Drone interception tech companies struggling at the end of the year?

Now Gatwick has spent £5 million on anti drone tech with the government spending money too.

Hell of a way to end the year

Rroff · 24 Dec 2018 at 19:04

Hardly worth it for the come back if they were caught and a good chance they would be though hah - given how high profile it has been management/directors of such a company would almost certainly be getting jail time.

h4rm0ny · 24 Dec 2018 at 19:12

Rroff said:
Hardly worth it for the come back if they were caught and a good chance they would be though hah - given how high profile it has been management/directors of such a company would almost certainly be getting jail time.

I'm going to disagree on this one. If anyone would be confident in how to do this and get away with it, it would be people from a "drone interception company". I mean, it sounds like it's high risk but we could be talking tens or hundreds of millions. Hell, you could make a fortune just by knowing shares were going up (and I bet they are). The sort of people who get to the top of industry, especially in new fields that companies are just opening up to, are not uncommonly risk takers. I can see more than one director thinking "I can make £60m here and how are they going to catch me?"

If there was a drone and it's not some well-resourced expert but some low-tech eco protestor or such, then that's just more evidence still that a well-resourced expert would get away with it.

But now it seems like maybe there never was. Which is crazy. I understand mass hysteria and "sightings". But I thought the source for this was radar at Gatwick picking something up. Is it now turning out they never did?

UberTiger · 24 Dec 2018 at 19:13

Malevolence said:
How many times is that image going to be posted?

Ask the admins to turn on post reactions so we don’t have to quote entire posts with a smiley face or write single ‘lol’ posts as feedback to stuff we like.

Malt_Vinegar · 24 Dec 2018 at 19:15

Rroff said:
Hardly worth it for the come back if they were caught and a good chance they would be though hah - given how high profile it has been management/directors of such a company would almost certainly be getting jail time.

If you have been in consultation with Gatwick and know what little equipment and resources are available to detect/track and bring down drones. It's VERY low risk. It's a surefire way to grease the wheels.

A quick call to a drone expert friend off the record and a backhander payment, it could be organised very easily and the company could easily sit behind a "rogue" employee if ever caught.
You would be surprised what goes on in business that's far darker.

We had a situation with a customer of ours who had a dramatic failure that escalated and increased the rollout of our product. Money that was previously unavailable was found very quickly. It was very big and hit the news, and that was all it took to change the deal totally from our point of view.

We had nothing to do with it obviously, but it would not surprise me if these things happened with some of what I have seen working for (and against) a Chaebol!