by Donald Wood
Last updated: 8:35 AM ET, Thu December 20, 2018
Update: December 22, 2018 at 9:40 a.m. ET
Police in the United Kingdom announced two suspects have been arrested in connection to a series of drone sightings that shut down Gatwick Airport for periods on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
According to Reuters.com, a 47-year-old man and a 54-year-old woman were arrested after repeatedly flying drones over Gatwick's one runway, causing officials at the airport to cancel hundreds of flights and impacting hundreds of thousands of stranded travelers.
Police said the suspects were located around five miles from Gatwick in a town called Crawley and remained in police custody Saturday morning.
"As part of our ongoing investigations into the criminal use of drones which has severely disrupted flights in and out of Gatwick Airport, Sussex Police made two arrests just after 10pm on 21 December," Sussex Police Superintendent James Collis said. "Our investigations are still on-going, and our activities at the airport continue to build resilience to detect and mitigate further incursions from drones, by deploying a range of tactics."
Update: December 21 at 7:45 a.m. ET
After being shut down due to the appearance of drones around and above Gatwick Airport, the facility finally reopened its one runway to arriving and departing flights Friday morning.
According to The Standard, over 100 flights remained canceled Friday and hundreds of thousands of passengers were impacted by the 36-hour shutdown of the London airport.
Local police were forced to call on the military to assist in the search for the operators of the disruptive drones.
Even with Gatwick returning to partial operations, officials from the airport are asking travelers to call their airline before heading to the airport to make sure their flight is not delayed or canceled.
Update: December 20, 2018 at 3:45 p.m. ET
Travelers heading to or from England Thursday are dealing with widespread delays and cancellations due to an ongoing influx of drones near London Gatwick Airport and an IT failure at Heathrow Airport.
According to the Evening Standard, more than 120,000 passengers have been impacted by the flight disruptions caused by several drones spotted flying over and around Gatwick. As a result, airport officials have called on the British Army to use special equipment to hunt for the rogue pilots.
As for Heathrow, the Daily Mirror is reporting the airport dealt with a computer malfunction that grounded flights Thursday and lasted around 25 minutes. The technical glitch impacted travelers trying to catch flights in Terminal 5.
All passengers scheduled to fly out of Gatwick and Heathrow are being asked to contact their airline before leaving for the airport to ensure their flight hasn't been impacted.
England's second-largest airport was shut down Wednesday into Thursday after illegal drone activity around the facility created unsafe conditions for arriving and departing flights.
According to The Associated Press, London's Gatwick Airport was forced to close its only runway Wednesday night after two drones were spotted, but it reopened to at 3 a.m. local time when the threat appeared to be gone.
Just 45 minutes later, officials at the airport saw more drones and were forced to cancel all flights until the area was clear. As a result of all the delays and cancellations, passengers had to sleep on floors and wait in long lines to get any information about what was happening.
In total, an estimated 10,000 travelers have been impacted by the airport shut down as of Thursday morning and even more will be impacted as the facility remains closed to incoming and outgoing flights.
Gatwick CEO Chris Woodroofe told The AP Thursday morning that at least one drone remained in the airport's airspace and a police helicopter was working to discover their operators in hopes of ending the incident.
In addition, Woodroofe and other officials are advising passengers scheduled to fly Thursday to avoid traveling to the airport and to check with their airlines on the status of their flights.
Flights departing from other cities during the busy holiday travel period that are scheduled to arrive at Gatwick Thursday are also being diverted to other airports in London (Heathrow), Manchester, Birmingham and other destinations.
For the latest travel news, updates and deals, subscribe to the daily TravelPulse newsletter.
Topics From This Article to Explore
