{"id":7700,"date":"2019-02-20T02:24:10","date_gmt":"2019-02-20T02:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/drone-no-fly-zone-to-be-widened-after-gatwick-chaos\/"},"modified":"2019-02-20T02:24:10","modified_gmt":"2019-02-20T02:24:10","slug":"drone-no-fly-zone-to-be-widened-after-gatwick-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/drone-no-fly-zone-to-be-widened-after-gatwick-chaos\/","title":{"rendered":"Drone no-fly zone to be widened after Gatwick chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div property=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width lead\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-image-replace\" alt=\"Drone\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/1764D\/production\/_105712859_gettyimages-1096139188.jpg\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\"\/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">The no-fly zone for drones around airports is to be extended following the disruption at Gatwick in December, the government says.<\/p>\n<p>From 13 March it will be illegal to fly a drone within three miles of an airport, rather than the current 0.6-mile (1km) exclusion zone.<\/p>\n<p>The government also said it wants police to have new stop and search powers to tackle drone misuse. <\/p>\n<p>Gatwick was shut for more than a day after drone sightings near the runway.<\/p>\n<p>It caused chaos for travellers, affecting more than 1,000 flights and about 140,000 passengers.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-46829615\" class=\"story-body__link\">Gatwick drones were in critical areas<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-46803713\" class=\"story-body__link\">Drone sighting disrupts Heathrow flights<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Since then airports have been trying to improve their procedures to detect drones, but they continue to see illegal flights near their perimeters. <\/p>\n<p>In January <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-46803713\" class=\"story-body__link\">departures at Heathrow were temporarily stopped<\/a> after a drone was reportedly sighted.<\/p>\n<p>Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said: &#8220;The law is clear that flying a drone near an airport is a serious criminal act.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re now going even further and extending the no-fly zone to help keep our airports secure and our skies safe.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Anyone flying their drone within the vicinity of an airport should know they are not only acting irresponsibly, but criminally, and could face imprisonment.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                 <span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Eddie Mitchell<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    There were sightings of drones at Gatwick in December<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">Stop and search<\/h2>\n<p>It is already illegal to fly a drone above 400ft or within 1km of an airport boundary, and those who recklessly or negligently endanger an aircraft with a drone face up to five years in jail.<\/p>\n<p>The government said the new stop and search powers would apply to people suspected of using drones maliciously nears airports. <\/p>\n<p>The powers, to be included in the government&#8217;s new Drones Bill, would also allow police to access electronic data stored on a drone.<\/p>\n<p>The Association of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (Arpas UK), which represents the drone industry, welcomed the wider no-fly zone but cautioned on the stop-and-search plans. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Police will need to know exactly what the rules are and in exercising their powers do so in the right way,&#8221; said Rupert Dent, an Arpas UK committee member. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are keen it doesn&#8217;t prevent legitimate operators from operating drones in a legitimate fashion.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">Eye witness accounts<\/h2>\n<p>Following the Gatwick disruption, Sussex Police arrested a drone enthusiast and his partner who lived near the airport, but they were released without charge on 23 December, having been cleared of any involvement.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement Sussex Police said they had still not found the perpetrators, despite having 130 eyewitness accounts of illegal drone flights. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We continue our criminal investigation, which is challenging in its scale and in the type and quality of evidence immediately available,&#8221; a spokeswoman said. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Despite a reward of \u00a350,000 for public information leading police to the person or persons responsible, we have not received the critical information that we believed exists within the community.&#8221; <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-47299805\">Source<\/a> by <a href=\"\">[author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Getty Images The no-fly zone for drones around airports is to be extended following the disruption at Gatwick in December, the government says. From 13 March it will be illegal to fly a drone within three miles of an airport, rather than the current 0.6-mile (1km) exclusion zone. The government also said it &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}