The recent drone incidents at Gatwick have prompted me to write again to my MP. I wrote previously concerning threats to aircraft safety from lasers and Flight Path Protection Teams (FPPT) being scrapped as a means of saving money. No mention in the MSM reports on “Gatwick” of FPPT, so could this be another Theresa May bad decision as Home Secretary?
Email exchange with my MP Bill Wiggin:
From: Alan Wheatley – Sent: 05 December 2015
To: Office of Bill Wiggin MP
Subject: Safety Threat to Planes
Hi Bill,
An article from Reuters, which see below, highlights a worrying development.
But I think the threat is not just from Manpads (see below). BBC Radio 4 within the last week or so had a feature on the danger to pilots eyes from lasers directed into cockpits. An eye surgeon was interviewed who described how this leads to permanent loss of sight, and that it has become a far from rare occurrence.
Apparently the risk is from high powered, hand held lasers that are now freely available to the public to buy – they are not the laser-pointer which we used when, for instance, giving a talk, which are very much less powerful. The surgeon thought that these high power laser should be banned.
In some cases it seems the damage was as a result of kids pointing the lasers into their friends eye or even their own, but pointing lasers at a plane’s cockpit is obviously far more deliberate.
Even if this is not, yet, a terrorist tactic it very easily could become one. So this is another task for the FPPT (see below), and so a cut in their numbers is the wrong thing to be doing at this time. It is VERY much easier for a self-starting terrorist to to get hold of a high power laser than a Manpads, but the results could be equally fatal.
Clearly the last thing I want to do is to make terrorists aware of what they could easily do, so I hope you can have a quiet word in the right quarter. Far better to prevent than pick up the pieces afterwards.
Incidentally, people using lasers, such as in research laboratories, can wear laser protection goggles/glasses, so it may be possible to provide pilots with eye wear to protect them from laser eye damage, irrespective of who is doing the pointing and why.
Best regards, Alan Wheatley
Copied from Reuters
“Specialist British police teams that guard against attacks on planes by militants armed with surface-to-air missiles are at risk of being disbanded because of cost-saving measures, according to sources close to the units.
Global aviation experts have warned that a proliferation of shoulder-launched missiles, known as Manpads (Man Portable Air Defence Systems), poses a serious threat to passenger planes, and the U.S. Department of State has said countering the spread of the weapons is a top national security priority.
Known as Flight Path Protection Teams (FPPT), the British police units were set up in 2008 to find and negate the threat from locations near airports where militants could fire Manpads or similar weaponry at planes as they take off and land.
They also work with local communities to collect intelligence about any suspicious activity.”
On 7 Dec 2015 Office of Bill Wiggin MP wrote:
Dear Alan
Thank you very much for your email. I will raise your concerns directly with the Secretary of State for Defence and I will come back to you when I have more information.
Bill
From: Alan Wheatley – To: Office of Bill Wiggin MP
Subject: Safety Threat to Planes
Date: 21 December 2018
Hi Bill,
I sent you an email just over four years ago [Ed: See text above].
You replied (see above) that you would raise my concerns with the the Secretary of State for Defence and come back to me. As far as I can tell from my records that never happened.
Four years on, at Gatwick, we have a different implementation of the same threat.
What happened to the Flight Path Protection Teams?
Did the then Home Secretary disband them?
I am even keener than four years ago to know.
Best regards, Alan Wheatley
Personally do not get the point of selling / making these Drones available to Jo Public who ever though it was a good I dear needs to have their head tested seeing as there will be always someone with Bad Intent and use them for Degenerate acts like Gatwick.
And while I am at it there was issue a few years back with laser pens lights (Shining them at Pilots) who dreams up all this pointless Tec Ideas most of it Cheap shoddy made with slave labour in china.
As to No mention in the MSM reports on “Gatwick” of Flight Path Protection Teams (FPPT), so could this be another Theresa May bad decision as Home Secretary?
Yes Absolutely She like the Rest of Lib/Lab/Con/Green has done nothing but fail the country for decades.
Problem-reaction-solution…
Situation: drones ground flights at Gatwick
Reaction: “SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!”
Solution: BAN THE DRONES! Or introduce regulation and licensing so owning and operating them can be closely controlled and restricted.
‘Ordinary’ members of the public will face the most restrictions, and it will be the ‘elites’ – including the military, police and intelligence services – who will be unhindered.
As the Liberal Democrats would say – TAX THEM
$48m to buy and ‘a dollar a shot’
Let’s buy some and keep the airports open.
A £2 per seat levy on all foreign flights into the country. ” Tourist and Guest Protection Tax ”
This was a continuous and sustained drone “attack” over a period of 12 hours. Obviously someone with an obsession with keeping Gatwick closed down. My prime suspect would be local eco-terrorists, who no doubt are already known to the police.
They have arrested two people ( a man and a woman ) but they have not been named or charged yet…
Drone blocking and drone killing technology for the military market is available – off the shelf, from Rafael Industries in Israel. If the government had any sense AT ALL it would have contacted the Israelis and asked for the IDF to come over with their kit and help us out, whilst immediately ordering enough systems to defend our airfields (and perhaps prisons) .
But no. Too busy nursing hangovers after packing up in Parliament and lazing about for 3 weeks to care.
Did you know, by the way, that the Army has absolutely NO light AA artillery at all ( like 20mm to 40mm auto cannons ) Not a single piece. Practically every other country does. So if the police / army were to have used small arms ( not effective ) it could not even have shot the damned drones down. AFAIK all this stuff can be bought from Rheinmettall in Germany or Bofors in Sweden, and it would have knocked the drone out of the sky in seconds.
Putin must be laughing his head off.
We can’t defend Gatwick from a £1000 toy, but we build aircraft carriers with no aeroplanes and sack 30,000 soldiers …
Despite the lack of equipment, which can be easily put right, defence of airfields should not be the province of PC Plod, but of the military. It is time to stop the cuts, start recruiting and buying that equipment. Of course our army has been run down in the belief that military integration with the EU is the answer.
Worringly such integration does not seem to have been halted despite our vote to leave. That just adds to concerns that there was never any plan for a clean exit from the EU despite our vote and government welcome the availability of EUROGENDFOR to suppress those who might object.
No quite sure that Pres Putin was laughing, I heard drone was made in Taiwan. No predudice just facts please.
Meanwhile, there have been a number of offline discussions in the Drone circles. The favourite is to get a top class drone flyer with a racing drone and just crash into the offender. With head up display and the speed the commercial drones fly at, both would fall out of the sky. Bill to the Airport – about 500 for the drone plus say the same for the expert. Job done.
If you dont think this is possible, racing drone record for a 100 yard figure of eight inside a hanger is over 180 mph – none of your common market kilogrammes, Miles Per Hour. And manoeuvrability is amazing.
On top of that the propellers running at around 30,000 rev/min on a racing drone will easily tear through the fabric of the target drone even if it is not truly knocked down.
As to firing live 20 mm canon shells around an airport, or anywhere else in civilian-land is concerned . . . ”it would be what Pres Putin would have wanted” (is that what you are saying?).
I believe that birds of prey have been trained to bring down drones somewhere. Can’t remember where I read it but it’s a good idea.
They have Debbie, and there are viedios of them doing it.
However, the programme has stopped.
Above, I mention the propeller speed and hence the lack of legs on many / most of the birds after they have ‘caught one’, in many senses.
If you have seen the damage to drone operators’ hands / (lack of) fingers who have lost concentration for a moment on the ground – oh look, that is loose . . you can understand why approaching these things is dangerous – even for an eagle.
Hmm. “Clearly the last thing I want to do is to make terrorists aware of what they could easily do” – are we assuming terrorists don’t visit this site?
That was four years ago. It would hardly be hot news today.
Thanks for that, Alan.
Although one wouldn’t expect HMG to reveal details of any plans, the public needs to be reassured that it has taken these various threats seriously.
This week, the evident powerlessness of the authorities over a period of about 36 hours to locate and track the Gatwick drones back to their point of departure has done nothing to inspire confidence that more sophisticated and less predictable forms of interference with flight operations can be combated. This was a national embarrassment.
Obviously, legislation cannot in itself prevent such attacks (and that is what the Gatwick incident amounted to) without countermeasures to back it up. But, re. the law, BALPA evidently pointed out years ago that allowing drones to fly at a height of up to 400 ft as close as 1 km from an aerodrome boundary does not remove the hazard to aircraft departing or arriving – particularly the latter. Assuming the perimeter fence itself were – for example – I km outside the runway touch-down point, an aeroplane on the approach would be descending through a height of about 350 ft as it passed the drone.
I’m not sure eye-protection for pilots against laser beams is a practical proposition. it would need to be free of any adverse effects on vision. Not all approaches and landings are automatic…
On the basis that drones cannot be put back in the box, the answer to drones is “killer” autonomous drones.
Noted.