2 held after drone sighted at Gatwick Airport

London: British police on early Saturday arrested two people for suspected “criminal use of drones” that affected flight movement at Gatwick Airport this week.

Sussex Police Superintendent James Collis was quoted by CNN saying that the investigation is not over and is still ongoing.

“The arrests we have made are a result of our determination to keep the public safe from harm. Every line of inquiry will remain open to us until we are confident that we have mitigated further threats to the safety of passengers,” Collis said.

The Sussex Police ruled out a terror motive over the latest drone sighting and added that the disruption was deliberate. The motives of the suspects remain unclear.

Gatwick Airport, one of busiest airports in the United Kingdom, was suspended again briefly on Friday, after a drone was sighted above a runway, leading to chaos and confusion at the facility.

The airport, which is witnessing a huge holiday crowd owing to the Christmas-New Year period, were greatly inconvenienced as over 160 flights were canceled on Friday following the incident.

Earlier on Wednesday, the airport was locked in a shutdown for over 32 hours due to repeated drone sightings. Although flight movement briefly resumed on Friday, it was again closed down for operations in the evening following the sighting of the new drone.

However, Gatwick Airport took to its Twitter handle to confirm that flight operations were resumed.

“Flights have now resumed. Airfield movements were suspended while we investigated this as safety remains our main priority. The military measures we have in place at the airport have provided us with reassurance necessary to re-open our airfield,” the airport tweeted.

[source_without_link]ANI[/source_without_link]