2 Arrested After Gatwick Airport Drone Chaos

More specifically, a 47-year-old man and a 54-year-old woman
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Dec 22, 2018 7:30 AM CST
2 Arrested After Gatwick Airport Drone Chaos
A plane comes in to land at Gatwick Airport in England on Friday.   (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

London's Gatwick Airport took strides toward running a full schedule Saturday as police questioned a man and a woman in connection with the drone intrusions that caused mayhem for tens of thousands of holiday travelers. Police said Saturday the suspects are a 47-year-old man and a 54-year-old woman from Crawley, roughly 5 miles from the airport, the AP reports. They were arrested on suspicion of disrupting civil aviation in a way likely to endanger people or operations. The airport's arrival and departure boards showed the busy airport inching toward normal but still showing an unusual number of delayed takeoffs and landings. In a statement, Britain's second-biggest airport said it's operational but urged passengers, many of whom have been stranded since the drone incursions began on Wednesday evening, to check the status of their flights before heading to the airport.

"Passengers should expect some delays and cancellations as we continue to recover our operations following three days of disruption and are advised to check with their airline before traveling to the airport," a Gatwick spokesman said. There have been no new drone sightings since police arrested two people late Friday night in connection with criminal use of drones. New drone sightings Friday evening had caused fresh problems for holiday travelers at the airport, which reopened in the morning after a 36-hour shutdown only to hastily suspend flights for more than an hour in the late afternoon on one of the busiest travel days of the year. Officials said extra military capabilities allowed flights to resume after the halt. Those arrested haven't been named or charged. Police didn't say where the arrests that took place late Friday were made. (The military was deployed to reopen the airport.)

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