Gatwick Airport remains closed due to a drone flying close to the airport, with cancelled flights stranding tens of thousands of passengers days before Christmas.
The disruption began at around 9pm on Wednesday when the airport reported that flights had been suspended and there were “reports of two drones flying in and around the airfield”, Sky News reports.
It said late Thursday it could not be reopened following further appearances of the devices.
Troops were deployed after the unprecedented attempt to cripple Christmas travel with unusually large drones forced all flights to be grounded.
As tens of thousands of passengers on Thursday waited at Gatwick Airport, south of the capital, London, police hunted unsuccessfully for the operators of the large drones which reappeared near the airfield every time the airport tried to reopen the runway, Al Jazeera reports.
Police said there was no indication of a terrorism motive behind the devices, which first appeared on Wednesday night.
Passengers were advised to check their flight status with their airline and not travel to the airport unless their flight had been confirmed.
On Thursday night police said there had been more than 50 sightings of the drone in 24 hours from when the runway was first closed. Night-flight restrictions had been lifted at other airports, so “more planes could get into and out of the country”, the transport secretary, Chris Grayling said.
“This is clearly a very serious ongoing incident in which substantial drones have been used to bring about the temporary closure of a major international airport,” he said.
“The people who were involved should face the maximum possible custodial sentence for the damage they have done. The government is doing everything it can to support Sussex police.”
The Guardian reports that “shooting down the drone was being considered as a “tactical option” after other strategies to stop it had failed.
Amid disbelief that the drone incident could be enough to bring one of the UK’s key airports to a standstill, the perpetrator or perpetrators eluded a search conducted by 20 units from two police forces in the surrounding area. Meanwhile, an emergency Whitehall meeting was called to decide on a response to the ongoing crisis and the airport warned that the disruption could mean further cancellations on Friday.
At least two drones, described as “substantial” by the government, “commercial” by the transport secretary, and “industrial” by police, were spotted repeatedly by staff in and around the airport perimeter from Wednesday night.
Shadow aviation minister Karl Turner said the regulations around drones were not tight enough and blamed Chris Grayling for failing to act.
“There should be wider exclusion zones around airports – I think the law says one kilometre at the moment, it should probably be five kilometres according to the experts,” he told BBC2’s Newsnight.
“The Government should have brought this legislation forward, it’s been an abject failure and I blame Chris Grayling.
“He should have been in the House of Commons today making a statement and explaining to MPs why the Government has failed to bring this legislation forward.”
