British newspaper, The Times, reports that UK police have not excluded the possibility that the closure of Gatwick airport in December 2018 due to drone sightings, may have been an inside job.
Gatwick, the UK’s second busiest airport, was thrown into mayhem between December 19 and 22 last year following multiple drone sightings. The sightings caused 1000 flights to be delayed or cancelled, 130,000 passengers to be disrupted and cost airline companies millions.
The current theory that police are working on, is that either a current or former airport employee may have been responsible for a drone or drones passing over the airport.
Why do police suspect it was an inside job?
The Times quoted a government source who alleged that whoever flew the drone, knew the locations at the airport where it would not be hit by anti-drone technology. That knowledge would be difficult to acquire without having worked at the airport. During the closure of the airport, the British military were deployed to Gatwick brought in armed with Israeli anti-drone technology. Despite the high-tech kit, they were unable to stop the drone making several more appearances over the next day.
Although scant photo and video evidence exist of the drones that flew over the airport, some 130 eyewitnesses claim to have seen a drone, including police, pilots and army personnel. Smartphone cameras aren’t necessarily good at catching clear images of moving objects from a great distance (as you can see below) and with no other good explanation for what the object flying over the airport was, a drone seems the most likely possibility.
One of the few photos that exist of the drone that flew over Gatwick Airport near London, late last year.
Since the incident, the investigating police from Sussex have been roundly criticized for failings in their investigation. To this point in time, no suspects are in custody. Two people were briefly held by police in December but ultimately released without charge.
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