A man and a woman have been arrested in connection with the “criminal use of drones” which sparked chaos for three days at Gatwick Airport.
The Telegraph reports that the arrests came as passengers braced for further disruption while the airport tried to recover from the turmoil.
Sussex Police said it made the arrests at about 22:00 GMT on Friday.
The BBC reports that the force said “pro-active” investigations into “the criminal use of drones” continued, and urged the public to contact it with information.
Police have yet to disclose the ages and genders of those arrested and where they were apprehended.
“We continue to urge the public, passengers and the wider community around Gatwick to be vigilant and support us by contacting us immediately if they believe they have any information that can help us in bringing those responsible to justice,” Superintendent James Collis is quoted to say by Sky.
“The arrests we have made this evening are a result of our determination to keep the public safe from harm, every line of enquiry will remain open to us until we are confident that we have mitigated further threats to the safety of passengers.”
He added that police are deploying tactics to “build resilience to detect and mitigate further incursions from drones”.
The reopening, closing and re-reopening of Britain’s second-busiest airport due to repeated drone sightings raised a host of questions for British officials, including questions about how safe it really is to fly with drones around and why it took so long to make arrests.
The Friday night flight suspension at Gatwick caused still more delays and cancellations just as the holiday travel season peaked. The persistent drone crisis at Gatwick, located 30 miles (45 kilometers) south of London, has had ripple effects throughout the international air travel system.
The latest drone sighting came after British police and transport officials said extra measures had been put in place to prevent drones from intruding on the airport, which serves 43 million passengers a year.
Military forces with special equipment have been brought in and police units are working around-the-clock. Police say a sophisticated drone operation is targeting the airport to cause maximum disruption during the holiday rush.
The motive for the drone invasion wasn’t clear but British police said there are no indications it was “terror related.”
Gatwick reopened at about 6 a.m. Friday after having been shut down Wednesday night and all day Thursday after authorities said drones repeatedly violated the airport perimeter, threatening the safely of incoming and outgoing planes. – Ap/Insider
