![]() Most countries now have regulations in place and to fly a drone in an urban area, for example, you need a licence. ‘I’m not sure it will really help to regulate any more. They have been left miserably behind as the technology has enabled people to get hold of these things.’ ‘Very few airports have any countermeasures or even processes in place to detect and defeat drones. There were around 900 flights cancelled and 120,000 passengers affected. On these occasions the airports were closed for half an hour to an hour to ensure the drone had gone, but during the recent incident at Gatwick, it was more than a day where no planes could take off. There were reports in Dubai, Copenhagen and Heathrow in London in the past. ‘There have been multiple airports now that have been closed down due to drone sightings. The pilot can be hidden away inside a tall building so no-one can see them.’ ![]() ‘With an airport, however, you don’t even need to strap a bomb onto the drone. It’s not dug into the dirt at the side of the road but is strapped onto a simple drone and flown into a vehicle or crowd of people. ‘At the height of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, there were a lot of roadside bombs that used improvised explosive devices or IED. There are soldiers who are being attacked by commercial drones that have been retrofitted with grenades or other explosives. The military, for example, is concerned about direct attacks. ‘There is another category where we categorise it as terrorism or harassment, which is what we have been looking at over the past few years. That is a very specific use case where the pilot is deliberately breaking the rules. For example, drones are being used to smuggle drugs, telephones or other stuff into prisons. ‘There are some who are using them for criminal acts. How are drones being used in these cases? This is a more worrying issue from our perspective.’ ‘But then there are also those people who don’t care about the regulations. Then someone reports a drone flying close to the airfield and it causes the kind of shutdowns we have seen recently. (People) want to go out and try their new toy and don’t realise they need to be at least one kilometre from an airport. I think if you look at some of the recent cases at Gatwick and Heathrow (airports), this could be what has happened there. People who are not aware of the rules and regulations. ![]() Is it deliberate or because people don’t know any better? They are given drones as toys for Christmas, so naturally they will go out and fly them.’ ![]() But more and more people are using the technology. ‘Over the last five years we have seen regulations come into force in different countries to make sure that drones are not flying close to areas like airports, prisons, military facilities or other critical infrastructure. So, if you were flying below 200 or 300 metres, no one really cared as no other aircraft were at that level unless you were close to an airport. At the time, there wasn’t really anybody taking care of the airspace below normal flying level. ‘If you go back maybe five years, that is when the first incidents started to appear. Why are drones posing a growing problem in our skies? ![]()
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