London’s Gatwick airport drone operators still on the loose after UK police release two suspects
- Man and women arrested on Friday night for ‘criminal use of drones’ have been set free without charges as they ‘are no longer suspects’
A man and a woman arrested over the drone disruption that brought Christmas getaway flights to a standstill at London’s Gatwick Airport were released without charge on Sunday, police said.
A 47-year-old man and a 54-year-old woman from the town of Crawley, near Britain’s second-busiest airport, were arrested on Saturday.
The police swooped after three days of disruption from Wednesday to Friday, affecting 140,000 passengers.
“Both people have fully cooperated with our enquiries and I am satisfied that they are no longer suspects in the drone incidents at Gatwick,” Sussex Police detective chief superintendent Jason Tingley said in a statement.
Drones were seen buzzing around the airfield more than 50 times, forcing the government to bring in specialist military resources to help counter the threat.
The dangers posed by drones include the possibility of a device smashing into a plane or being sucked up into an engine where its highly flammable lithium battery could cause a catastrophe.