The Gatwick Drone Debacle: Part 1

A week before Christmas in 2018, Gatwick Airport was shut down by drones. The police interviewed suspects but the culprit never apprehended. You likely heard about it on the news; a story about panicked police searching for the drones while airline passengers grew red in the face at the thought of their Christmas plans being ruined.

I happened to be one of the people flying out that day.

As with any disaster, my day started with a well laid out plan.

Any dusting of snow is enough to debilitate England’s transportation industry, so I had given myself an extra two hours for things to go wrong. I figured two hours being sat in Gatwick, listening to podcasts, and sipping tea was preferable to missing my flight. By six in the morning I was speeding down the highway for my noon flight. Plenty of time!

The weeks leading up to Christmas had been quite stressful for me, and so despite the early hour I considered this part of my vacation. I napped in the car and had arrived at Gatwick well in time to have a hot breakfast and a pot of tea at the restaurant opposite the security entrance. It’s not often that I want breakfast, but when I do I want it to be good!

I was blissfully unaware that Gatwick had been having problems with drones all night long.

My first hint was an announcement; some flights would be delayed for a few hours. Did I care? Absolutely not.

It was early, I had breakfast, I was finally stress free, and I had chalked the delays up to bad weather at the destination. Clear weather at the departure airport doesn’t guarantee the same at your destination. I had also planned for just such an occasion by scheduling my connecting flight several hours after my arrival time. I remember thinking that as far as I was concerned they could cancel and delay a few more times if they wanted to.

They did.

About an hour later came the announcement that flights had resumed. I was just finishing up my meal, and was ready to pull out my book and have another cup of tea. Fifteen minutes later they were delayed again.

It’s to be expected, I thought. Clearly there’s something going on with the weather.

Time passed, more announcements came resuming flights only to delay them again. At ten I checked my bags, expecting that even if my flight was delayed it wasn’t a big deal Missing it would be worse. I returned to security only to find that they weren’t letting anyone through, so I took my seat at the restaurant once more and waited. I had my book, I had my phone, I had my seat, I was unperturbed!

The restaurant was filling up around me, and so when I saw a couple of retirees scanning for seats I offered them a place at my table. We chatted as they ate, they asked me if I had any news. I pulled up what I could on my phone and read it to them.

It turned out that a drone had been spotted around midnight, and so they’d been forced to shut down the runway and delay flights. For the same reason that they have dogs and falcons to chase away birds, it’s unsafe for drones to be flying around planes. Can you imagine if one got caught up in the engines? After an hour of search procedures which turned up nothing the airport would open again, only for the drone to reappear. The eerie part was that the pattern kept repeating.

The couple theorised that it was a teenager playing a prank. It didn’t square with me, and it still doesn’t. The drone didn’t reappear after the search for it had stopped. It only came back after Gatwick had announced that flights would be resuming, as if the controller was listening to the announcements from inside the airport.

Teenagers or no, Gatwick took it very seriously. Shortly after the couple left I watched as several armed men disappeared through security. The weapons they carried looked as though they would be more at home in a warzone.

When my own flight was delayed I called my parents. It seems by that time the incident hadn’t made international news, but my parents weren’t worried and neither was I. If I had to go back to my flat and reschedule my flight, so be it. I could always fight Air Transat for the costs later.

Then came the announcement that security was opening, and everyone jumped at the chance. Looking back I think the announcement was meant to gather everyone within earshot, because it was announced that several providers were cancelling their flights.

Most of the crowd that had lined up for security were customers from another airline, and they were livid when their flights were cancelled. I can understand why, I don’t think they were ever paid any damages or refunds.

Air Transat customers were told to please wait in line at the check ins and so I plunked myself down in what would turn out to be a rather advantageous spot.

Why you ask? Check back next week to find out! To be continued …