Panorama.2019.04.15.The.Gatwick.Drone.Attack

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Panorama.2019.04.15.The.Gatwick.Drone.Attack
Transcript
00:00Tonight on Panorama, the mystery of the Gatwick drone attack.
00:07140,000 passengers delayed.
00:10We kind of just got stuck in a total limbo.
00:131,000 flights cancelled or diverted.
00:17We couldn't say anything, we were just all crying.
00:20For the first time, we reveal the cat-and-mouse battle against the drone.
00:26They clearly had some idea of how airports work
00:29and had some intelligence as to what we were doing.
00:32We test the military kit brought in to disable drones.
00:36So he's completely lost control and there's nothing that he can do.
00:39And look at how dangerous drones can be.
00:42That could be catastrophic to an aircraft.
00:46Four months on, no-one has been caught.
00:49So what really happened? We've got the inside story.
00:57Panorama
01:099pm, Wednesday, December 19th.
01:13Gatwick, Britain's second biggest airport, was busy.
01:17Thousands of passengers were looking forward to a Christmas getaway.
01:23That all changed at three minutes past nine.
01:27An airport security officer who'd just finished his shift
01:30was standing at this bus stop when he called Gatwick Control
01:33to say he'd seen two drones.
01:36One of them was hovering above a vehicle inside the airport,
01:40the other was flying alongside this perimeter fence.
01:45Within two minutes, Gatwick's only runway was closed.
01:50All flights to and from Gatwick Airport have been suspended.
01:55Twenty police and security vehicles were sent out,
01:58their lights flashing to deter the drones.
02:01It didn't work.
02:03Over the next half hour, six people, including five police officers,
02:07reported seeing a drone.
02:11Planes were queuing up in the sky, running low on fuel.
02:16Fourteen aircraft declared an emergency,
02:19requiring an immediate need to divert to an alternative aerodrome.
02:23The man in charge of Gatwick's response made his initial assessment.
02:28My view is that this is a malicious attack,
02:32it's probably going to last all night, but come daybreak,
02:36my expectation is that the drone operator is going to leave.
02:41But that wasn't the case this time.
02:45By midnight, the drone hadn't been seen for an hour.
02:49They tried to reopen the runway, but back came the drone.
02:55Sussex Police alerted the Met's counter-terror unit.
02:58This was rapidly becoming a national emergency.
03:06Drones represent a step change in aviation technology.
03:11That's now at 100 metres.
03:13Millions have been sold worldwide.
03:17They're finding all sorts of innovative new uses.
03:21They can map cities, monitor livestock and crops,
03:26and save lives.
03:34And there is now a fast-growing community of amateur drone pilots.
03:39It's not easy to fly in a building.
03:42Some are highly skilled.
03:46But some are not.
03:58Drones can be a nuisance.
04:06And unwilling subjects have been known to fight back.
04:13These days, for less than £1,000,
04:17you can buy a drone that has a range of five miles
04:21and can reach heights of up to three miles,
04:24which is why they cause so much concern to the aviation industry.
04:35We have a lot of drone activity.
04:37We have a lot of drone activity.
04:39It can be multiple throughout the shift.
04:42This morning, investigators are looking into the first-ever collision
04:45between a commercial plane and a drone.
04:48There have been only a few reported collisions and no fatalities,
04:52but close calls are on the increase.
04:55Last year, one every three days in the UK.
05:00In the early hours of Thursday 20th December,
05:03the Gatwick runway was still closed.
05:06Most flights were delayed, not cancelled.
05:09Those who'd boarded planes were left stranded on the tarmac.
05:19Seven months pregnant Tayo and her fiancé Ope
05:22had spent her fortune on a dream wedding in Marrakesh.
05:26The celebrations were due to begin in 48 hours.
05:31We sat on the tarmac for, what, two or three hours?
05:35What did the pilot say?
05:37There was nothing, but they were not being clear about it.
05:41Finally, Tayo and Ope were told to come back in the morning.
05:45They found themselves a hotel.
05:48When Gatwick tried to reopen the runway again at 3am,
05:52there was another flurry of sightings.
05:55The departure area was getting even busier.
05:59We expected to fly at 3am, it was still here.
06:01We had no idea when we were going to fly.
06:03You'd think that an airport of this size
06:06would have some sort of contingency plan to cope with a drone.
06:11Lauren and her husband had been saving
06:14for a once-in-a-lifetime Christmas treat.
06:17Girls, you're going to go to the real-life Lapland!
06:21Yeah!
06:23I'd worked overtime probably for about four months before.
06:26We wanted to stay in a rural location,
06:29really near to a live husky farm,
06:31so the research that went into it was intense.
06:36It was only when they were en route to Gatwick on Thursday morning
06:40that they heard about the trouble at the airport.
06:44Gatwick had now tried to reopen three times,
06:47sending out an inspection vehicle to check the runway.
06:51But each time, says Gatwick, the drone reappeared.
06:56By 9.30 on Thursday morning,
06:58airport authorities say the pattern was clear.
07:02This was a game of cat and mouse.
07:05Every time they tried to reopen the airport, up came the drone again.
07:09Whoever was flying it appeared to understand airport operations,
07:13and what's more, seemed to be able to see
07:16what was happening here on the ground.
07:19Whoever was doing this was definitely doing this deliberately,
07:22and by virtue of the way that they operated,
07:24they had some idea of how airports work
07:27and had some intelligence as to what we were doing.
07:30And the drone operators had specifically selected their drone, I believe,
07:35to ensure it wasn't detected by the equipment that we had on site.
07:40Heathrow was now on high alert as well.
07:43Britain's other airports and those in Europe
07:46were closely following what was happening at Gatwick.
07:51Gatwick's police call in officers from five other forces
07:54to help with the search.
07:56They sent up a helicopter and their own drones...
08:01..to no avail.
08:07Chelsea Angeles was on her way to Barbados for Christmas.
08:12She vented her frustration on social media.
08:16So, at the moment, I'm at Gatwick, waiting.
08:19My flight was meant to be at ten in the morning.
08:21It's half nine now, and there's been an announcement to say
08:24that it's going to be around 11.
08:26We're still getting sightings of the drone in and around the airfield.
08:29I've got over 20 units from Surrey and Sussex and from the airport
08:33searching for the drone operators to try and locate him.
08:36The runway, which currently is not open, it is still closed.
08:41We have delayed the slide a further one hour.
08:45Once we hear any more, we will let you know.
08:48Delayed another hour.
08:51By 11am, the drone had been haunting the airport for 14 hours.
08:56So, was Gatwick right to be so cautious?
09:01Britain's pilots have been raising their concerns
09:04with the government for five years.
09:09How much of a risk do drones really pose?
09:12Well, it's our principal concern.
09:14You know, the aircraft are flying all the time very, very fast.
09:18Drones are very, very small.
09:20You get precious little opportunities to avoid a drone.
09:23From a pilot's perspective, they may not even see it,
09:26and if they do, it will be upon them, you know, like that.
09:30Last year, the University of Dayton in Ohio simulated a drone strike.
09:36The drone did not shatter apart.
09:39It completely penetrated and it was buried inside the wing.
09:43Substantial amount of damage.
09:46I don't believe this particular impact
09:49would have been catastrophic to this aircraft.
09:52But there are drones that are much heavier than this,
09:56and those drones can run over 55 pounds.
10:00So, if you have a drone that weighs two pounds
10:02and does this kind of damage,
10:04and you have something that weighs 50 pounds,
10:07that's 25 times the impact energy
10:09to potentially do 25 times the amount of damage that we see here.
10:14And that could be potentially catastrophic to an aircraft.
10:20Some drone companies question the test's validity,
10:23but the researchers are not so sure.
10:26Some drone companies question the test's validity,
10:29but the researchers stand by them.
10:33The UK government has commissioned its own collision tests.
10:37In one, a 3.5 kilogram drone penetrated a plane's windscreen.
10:43Pilots say an impact like this could be devastating.
10:48So, should the government have done more
10:51to protect our airports from drone attacks?
10:54Was it obvious that an attack like this might happen?
10:57Well, I'm not sure it was obvious.
10:59This incident was the first of its kind that we've seen,
11:02and I think it's fair to say we've all learned lessons from that.
11:05This is an emerging threat.
11:06Airports are now investing a lot more,
11:08but if somebody is intent on building a drone
11:11and flying their drone illegally, then they are able to do so.
11:15Midday Thursday, and Gatwick was still in lockdown.
11:20Waiting and waiting and waiting.
11:25We have disabled kids, we have children,
11:28but we surrounded four hours inside the plane without any information.
11:32Sightings continued throughout the day,
11:34and they were reported all over the airport.
11:38The runway, the hangars, the control tower, the terminal buildings.
11:44The airport is big.
11:46The runway is over two miles long.
11:49The perimeter is about six miles,
11:52so the drone would have travelled considerable distances.
11:58Mark Boyt is a professional drone pilot.
12:03Mark, how close to Gatwick would you need to be
12:06for somebody to fly a drone over Gatwick?
12:08It could be a mile away, it could be six miles away.
12:11This particular drone here will do about 60 miles an hour, quite happily.
12:14This drone will probably do 30 miles an hour,
12:16take them along with one or two minutes to be in the airfield
12:19and start causing problems.
12:21Most drones have a built-in block called geofencing.
12:25It stops them flying into the restricted zones
12:28around sensitive places like airports and prisons.
12:32What these criminals are doing is probably playing around
12:35with the software in them to make sure it actually flies in the area.
12:38And technically, how much of a challenge would that be?
12:40It's very easy, the software's out there.
12:42So give me an idea of how someone might have done this.
12:45I just think they've gone to a remote location,
12:47maybe pre-programmed it to fly up and down the runway for ten minutes,
12:51maybe set it to land somewhere completely different,
12:54picked it up and driven home again with it in the boot.
12:583pm Thursday.
13:00Passengers were now getting seriously dispirited.
13:04So we're coming up to Alp 5.
13:06Still haven't heard anything about the flight, so...
13:11So if it's four o'clock in the afternoon,
13:1418 hours it's delayed, your wedding's on the Saturday,
13:17what are you beginning to think now?
13:19He met this Gatwick staff and then he's like,
13:23we're not getting anything from this airline,
13:26so if it's really, really important,
13:28I would suggest you make alternative plans.
13:31He must have been under so much stress cos this is your wedding.
13:34Yeah.
13:36By this point, many airlines had cancelled their flights,
13:40but not Lauren's.
13:42Her family were told to keep waiting
13:44in the now-emptying departure lounge.
13:47It was really strange, actually.
13:49It got to the point where I remember saying to a police officer,
13:52like, we know that flights aren't taking off, staff are going home,
13:56like, this isn't going ahead,
13:58can you see if you can close the airport
14:00so that our airline are forced to cancel the flight
14:03like all of the other airlines?
14:05And they said no.
14:07We kind of just got stuck in a total limbo.
14:09It just seemed like nobody wanted to take responsibility.
14:15Chelsea learned her flight wasn't going anywhere.
14:20We just got word that the flight's now being cancelled.
14:23So if you could please get all your belongings ready now
14:26to leave the clubhouse,
14:28and we will escort you through to get your bags.
14:31As yet, we still do not have new flight times,
14:34like VS33 or VS29,
14:37and what we would advise is checking the website regularly.
14:43It was now that the ultimate line of defence was deployed.
14:48Five o'clock that afternoon, military trucks arrived at the airport.
14:52They contained an anti-drone system designed for battlefield operation.
14:57Engineers immediately began installing it up there
15:00on the roof of Gatwick's south terminal.
15:04We'll lift the drone off and we'll get it off into the field.
15:08So how does the system work?
15:11Dave, what have we got here? What is this kit?
15:13This is the anti-drone defence system.
15:16There's a radar system, we have an electro-optic system,
15:20which is about tracking and locating that drone,
15:23and then we have the RF inhibition.
15:26Lots of people call that jamming, radio-frequency jamming.
15:29So the idea then is to essentially stop the drone.
15:32That's right.
15:33Right, Dave, so the drone's up.
15:35Can we see how the system actually operates?
15:37So the operator is interested in something on that area,
15:40then the camera will automatically slew to that area,
15:43so you can then track the drone and you can identify and locate it.
15:51Whoa, where have you brought me, Dave? What's this place?
15:53This is our multimillion-pound test facility.
15:56It's sealed for any radio-frequency emissions.
15:59It gives us the ability to test the system completely
16:02without having any impact on the outside world.
16:04We've got an operator, James, here. John's back here.
16:07James, can we have the drone up?
16:14And, John, you can now inhibit it.
16:19So the inhibitor's on, right?
16:21It's still flying,
16:23but the frequency the pilot uses to control the drone has been blocked.
16:28Oh, no, he can't fly at all. No.
16:30So he's completely lost control
16:32and there's nothing that he can do until John turns off the inhibitor.
16:36He releases it, that's right, yeah.
16:40How many times have you sold it, for example, to airports?
16:44Can't answer that. You can't answer that?
16:47The military's anti-drone equipment was switched on around 9pm,
16:52but it detected nothing.
16:55Gatwick believes the drone operator might have been frightened off
16:58when they saw the kit being installed.
17:01There were no more sightings that night.
17:06Guys, bring the gear in. Let's have a look.
17:08These amateur drone pilots from Yorkshire
17:11like to fly super-fast racing drones for fun.
17:17So what do you think of what happened at Gatwick?
17:19Well, personally, I don't believe there was a drone there.
17:22I don't know if it's a hysteria thing
17:24where somebody's mentioned they've seen a drone
17:26and the next thing you know, somebody sees a carrier bag floating past
17:30and then ten people, oh, my God, there's a drone.
17:33So we've spoken to quite a few kind of drone experts
17:36and they said that they couldn't detect a signal
17:39from the controller to the drone.
17:41Now, what does that tell you?
17:43There were no drones.
17:46It's obvious.
17:47These are throwing out video, radio signals all over the place.
17:51So you're very sceptical about it?
17:53I mean, I've probably come across as some tinfoil hat nutter,
17:56but anybody that flies knows...
17:59We all knew when it came on the news, we're all like, what?
18:02A drone's shut down Gatwick? A single drone? What?
18:07So could John be right?
18:09Eyewitnesses described the drone as large,
18:12maybe commercial, with bright lights and moving extremely fast.
18:17This is the only footage that claims to show it.
18:21It's coming over your head. Over your head.
18:24But it has never been authenticated.
18:29The police say there are 115 eyewitnesses.
18:33But where are they?
18:35We've spoken to the police, the airport, the airlines,
18:38air traffic controllers and many in the local community
18:41asking for people who saw the drone.
18:44But nobody has come forward.
18:46And in the age of the smartphone, there are no verified pictures either.
18:54And a police interview from the time raised further doubts.
18:58Are you even considering the possibility
19:01that there may not have been genuine drone sightings in the first place?
19:05We cannot discount the possibility that there may have been no drone at all.
19:11When his boss went on Radio 4 to confirm there had been a drone,
19:15he muddied the waters even more.
19:18I'm absolutely certain the presence of the drone was there.
19:21We would have launched our own Sussex police drones at the time
19:25with a view to investigate, looking for that drone.
19:28So there could be some level of confusion there as well.
19:31There's 115 credible sightings by members of my team,
19:36people I've worked with for a decade,
19:38people who have worked at the airport for 30 years, on the airfield,
19:41who fully understand the implications of reporting a drone sighting.
19:45But how can you be certain these are credible sightings?
19:48You're closing the airport, disrupting 140,000 people on basically hearsay.
19:53I think I saw a drone.
19:55They knew they'd seen a drone. I know that they saw a drone.
19:58And we appropriately closed the airport.
20:01Gatwick remained closed throughout Thursday evening.
20:05Lauren and her family left the airport around 8pm.
20:10Their Lapland dreams were over.
20:13I was devastated. I was absolutely devastated.
20:16It was really disappointing.
20:18We couldn't say anything. We were just all crying.
20:24After waiting for over 20 hours,
20:27Tayo and Ope left for Manchester Airport,
20:30desperate to get to their Marrakesh wedding on time.
20:34The new flights were so expensive they had to cancel their honeymoon.
20:51At 4.07 on Friday morning, the runway was finally reopened.
20:56The first flight, from Shanghai, landed just before 6.
21:01How did it feel for you at that time?
21:03Everyone was stood at the windows watching the first flight come in,
21:08hoping that no drone was going to reappear.
21:12Gatwick has reopened its runway this morning
21:15after drones caused it to shut down for nearly 36 hours.
21:19But the airport was facing some tough questions.
21:23Gatwick spent £5 million on counter-drone technology.
21:27Other international airports have already made those kinds of investments.
21:31Why hadn't Gatwick spent that money to protect its passengers?
21:35There was no government-approved equipment that we could go and buy.
21:39The equipment that I have today on site that I spent £5 million on,
21:43that's on the roof of the building that we are sat in,
21:46is painted sand yellow because it's come straight from the military environment.
21:51This is the first time it's been used commercially.
21:55The police have questions to answer too.
21:58On Friday, they arrested Paul Gate and Elaine Kirk,
22:01who live less than two miles from the airport.
22:04They released them without charge after 36 hours.
22:08We are deeply distressed, as are our family and friends,
22:14and we are currently receiving medical care.
22:18Despite a huge police effort and a £50,000 reward,
22:22the culprit remains at large.
22:27But there was one possible sighting of the perpetrator.
22:32During the attack, Paul and Sheila Mott were dropping off a parcel
22:36about three miles from the runway.
22:41I couldn't find the address in the dark,
22:43though I had a powerful head torch on,
22:45and so I drove the whole way up, staring carefully at every entranceway.
22:49We came to a particular gateway, quite a large setback one,
22:54which had a figure leaning over two drones.
22:58One was a large three- to four-foot-wide one,
23:01actually with its lights on, and the other was much smaller.
23:04Both were crossbar type.
23:06He was leaning over the lit drone.
23:08He didn't look up when the car headlights were on him.
23:13So I'm afraid I drove off quite quickly, within a few seconds,
23:16without taking a picture.
23:18They were troubled by what they'd seen.
23:21I decided to pull over, finally make my first ever in my life 999 call.
23:26It was three days before the police took a full statement from the Motts.
23:32Sussex Police declined to be interviewed,
23:35but told Panorama they are no longer pursuing this lead.
23:42So who did it?
23:44Well, the police have pretty much ruled out the idea
23:47that this was orchestrated by a foreign power.
23:50That's something the security services think is very unlikely.
23:54If it was a terrorist group or a protest,
23:57you would expect them to have claimed it.
23:59So the working hypothesis at the moment
24:01is that this was probably done by a mischief-maker,
24:04possibly somebody with a grudge against Gatwick.
24:08They seemed to be tracking events at the airport.
24:11It was clear that the drone operators had a link
24:15into what was going on at the airport,
24:18be that a visual link, be that a radio link,
24:21or even using the internet,
24:23where much of this information is readily available.
24:28Sussex Police have told Panorama
24:30that the drone operator could have been an airport insider.
24:34It said this has been treated as a credible line of inquiry
24:38since the earliest stages of the investigation.
24:43But the truth is we may never know
24:46the identity of the mystery drone pilot.
24:52Since the Gatwick attack,
24:54the government has widened the exclusion zone around airports
24:57from one kilometre to five.
25:00They plan to give the police more powers
25:02to search for and seize drones.
25:05And in November this year,
25:07they'll introduce a new registration scheme
25:10and drone competency test.
25:16To see how dangerous drones can be, just look online.
25:21A teenager in Connecticut
25:23racked up millions of heads for a drone test.
25:27A teenager in Connecticut
25:29racked up millions of hits with his drone adaptations.
25:36Hello, my friend, it's FBS Russia again,
25:38and I've got something very, very special for you guys today.
25:42And this spoof character
25:44claims to have created an even deadlier drone.
25:52But it's not just clickbait.
25:54In Venezuela, there was an apparent attempt
25:57to assassinate the president using drones loaded with explosives.
26:03The jihadist group Islamic State has used drones in Syria and Iraq.
26:09Terrorists could do the same in the UK.
26:12So how serious is the risk that drones will be used for terrorism?
26:17There's a huge potential for these things to be used
26:20in a malign and devastating way.
26:23The fact that you could attack a government building
26:26or a football stadium or sports stadium of some nature
26:29is the obvious target.
26:31Terrorists like novelty,
26:33and there's also a symbolic value of using a drone
26:36to attack Western targets
26:38when the West has used drones to attack them.
26:41Everyone that we talk to who is concerned with security
26:44regards this as inevitable.
26:47On Friday evening, there was a final brief closure
26:51after another flurry of sightings,
26:53but Gatwick's runway was open again at a quarter past six.
26:58Gatwick's drone nightmare was finally over.
27:04The drone scare had caused delays and disruption
27:08to over 140,000 people
27:11and had reportedly cost airlines over £50 million.
27:16Gatwick says it has no regrets about how it responded.
27:21There's absolutely nothing that I would do differently
27:24when I look back at the incident.
27:26It was terrible that 140,000 people's journeys were disrupted,
27:29but everyone was safe.
27:31Some passengers say it's been hard to get refunds
27:34and because the incident was classed as an extraordinary circumstance,
27:39airlines don't have to offer compensation.
27:45Lauren and her family never made it to Lapland in Finland,
27:50but they were given a free visit here
27:53to a Lapland experience in Bracknell.
27:58What did you get?
28:00Crayon.
28:01Yeah.
28:02Packed like this.
28:04Uh-huh.
28:05And chocolate.
28:10Peace out, guys.
28:12Chelsea eventually got to Barbados.
28:15And though many of their guests didn't make it,
28:18Tayo and Ope arrived in Marrakesh just in time for their own wedding.
28:33We've all seen the news reports.
28:35This is the no-nonsense guide to global warming.
28:38David Attenborough presents Climate Change, The Facts,
28:41Thursday night at nine here on BBC One.
28:44Comedy, though, next night.
28:45Two new series starting with Not Going Out in a moment.