UK's Heathrow airport departures suspended after drone sighting

January 09, 2019 00:12

All flights out of the UKs busiest airport, Londons Heathrow, have been suspended after a drone sighting, just weeks after a similar report at Gatwick grounded about 1,000 flights.

A spokesperson for Heathrow said: We are currently responding to a drone sighting at Heathrow and are working closely with the Met police to prevent any threat to operational safety.

As a precautionary measure, we have stopped departures while we investigate. We apologise to passengers for any inconvenience this may cause.

The Metropolitan police said: At approximately 5.05pm today, 8 January, we received reports of a sighting of a drone in the vicinity of Heathrow airport. As a precautionary measure, Heathrow airport has stopped departures, and officers based at Heathrow are currently investigating the reports with colleagues [there].

About 1,40,000 people were affected by the disruption at Gatwick, which occurred over a three-day period in the run-up to Christmas. The latest incident comes only days after it was announced that both airports had invested significant sums of money in military-grade anti-drone technology.

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