Drone sighting over Heathrow temporarily disrupts airport

Police in the United Kingdom are probing drone sightings at London's Heathrow Airport that caused major disruption on Tuesday evening.

The incident at the world's second-busiest airport by international passenger numbers followed similar sightings at London's Gatwick Airport between Dec 19 and 21 that led to the cancellation of 1,000 flights and 140,000 passengers being inconvenienced.

Britain's military confirmed on Tuesday it is working with London's Metropolitan Police Service at Heathrow.

The commander of the police, Stuart Cundy, told the BBC the military was helping at the airport but would not go into specifics. Sky News said passengers had reported seeing a police helicopter over the runway during the incident.

"We are carrying out extensive searches around the Heathrow area to identify any people who may be responsible for the operation of the drone," Cundy said. "The illegal operation of drones at an airfield is extremely dangerous."

The sightings shortly after 5 pm led to the suspension of departures from the west London airport for about an hour. The airport said on Wednesday morning it was fully back to normal.

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said he remained in contact with the airport throughout the incident and had also spoken to the home secretary and defense secretary about the matter.

The incident followed the government announcing recently that police in the UK will get new powers to tackle illegal drone use, including larger exclusion zones around airports, new search powers for investigators, documentation for operators, and – in the case of larger drones – a pilot competency test.

Following the incident at Heathrow, which serves more than 200,000 people a day, Brian Strutton, general secretary of the British Airline Pilots' Association, urged the government to further strengthen legislation, and called on airports to invest in anti-drone technology.

"It's time to act swiftly and decisively," Strutton said.

Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington told ITV News: "Clearly, the government is looking at the law to see whether there are ways in which it could be strengthened."

Since the disruption at Gatwick last month, the airport has invested five million pounds ($6.4 million) on anti-drone measures.

A Heathrow spokesman said after the latest incident: "We continue to monitor this situation and apologize to any passengers that were affected by this disruption."

A senior member of airport staff claimed overall disruption was "minimal".

"There are flights cancelled every day, for many reasons," the person told The Telegraph newspaper."We cannot say that any cancellation was because of a drone sighting, because it may well have been for a mechanical fault on an aircraft at the same time. That is a question for the individual airlines."

British Airways, the biggest carrier at Heathrow, said at least 40 of its flights were delayed by half an hour or more, but noted none were cancelled.