UK mobilizes lawyers to keep report on Gatwick 'drone' chaos under wraps

The UK's Department for Transport (DfT) is assembling government lawyers to fight the Information Commissioner's decision that it must release a document summarizing the lessons from the 2018 Gatwick drone chaos. Government sources confirmed the development to The Register this week – the latest in a series of attempts made by …

[ParlezVousFranglais]

Given that the MoD has just demonstrated it has no serviceable warships, submarines or even a remotely workable plan to respond to events that the whole of the rest of the world knew weeks ago were just about to happen, I'm not sure that the release of a few pages of processes detailing how inept the security services are at finding an errant drone represents any kind of significant threat to national security.

Please just release the docs, accept the ministerial resignation, do the obligatory u-turn, and get on with life...

[Tron]

Money may be involved.

If a govt agency faked it, they would get a bill from everyone who lost money because of it.

[cyberdemon]

Re: Money may be involved.

As I understand it, it was a very embarrassing cock-up.

The boss of my company at the time told me that he had spoken to someone very high up at the CAA, who had told him that there was no drone. Two or more different police forces were chasing each-other's drones.

[Like a badger]

"MoD has just demonstrated it has no serviceable warships, submarines or even a remotely workable plan "

Quite so. MoD could just about defend the UK against a clown with a bucket of wet sponges (so long as they had sufficient advance notice), beyond that there's little or nothing.

The total absence of any political shame, contrition, or desire to do differently tells us all we need to know. This isn't an outcome that occurred accidentally or even through incompetence, it can only be the result of twenty plus years of stealth disarmament policy courtesy of the LabConLib uniparty.

[VoiceOfTruth]

>> MoD has just demonstrated it has no serviceable warships, submarines

But it does have lots of admirals.

It also has very sub-par housing, since it was contracted out. I think the government has an unwritten motto: treat them like shit.

[ParlezVousFranglais]

Indeed - about 60 "warships", but about 350+ officers at Captain rank and above - also worth noting that the C/O of HMS Dragon (when it eventually gets going) has a rank of Commander (below Captain)

So 350+ penpushers and seemingly very little clue about what the Navy is there to do - either that or no backbone to stand up to successive governments of both persuasions - either way they should collectively hang their heads in absolute shame...

[Ossi]

Agreed that the navy is top heavy, but the real blame lies at the door of politicians. Between the last of the Type 45s starting construction in 2007 and the first Type 26 order in 2017, not a single escort shop was ordered for the Royal Navy. Given that a warship lasts about 30 years, then an escort ship would need to be hitting the water every 18 months to maintain a fleet of 20 ships. The neglect is astonishing. Moreover, it's expensive and inefficient as dockyard capacity and expertise had to be regenerated.

[Ossi]

To be fair, the housing has now been brought back into public ownership, at colossal cost of course, all thanks to the worship of the God of Outsourcing who can do no wrong. Don't get me started on the farce of outsourced military recruitment...

[Korev]

> Please just release the docs, accept the ministerial resignation

They don't even need to do that, the current Government can just point fingers at the old lot

Drone icon -->

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got a bigger navy in my bedroom.

All Airfix of course.

[DJV]

Re: I've got a bigger navy in my bedroom.

And yours are probably just as seaworthy!

[Anonymous Coward]

The are just trying to avoid getting sued by Gatwick Airport, NATS and Airlines.

‘On the ground of National Security’ is a good hole to bury bad news, out of sight of stakeholders.

It’s the same sort of clown car personnel driven shitshow as US FAA v’s Dept of WAR v’s Homeland Security and anti drone weaponry trials on the US Mexico Border.

[Cynical Pie]

Duff info

Duff info in the article - the FTT is nothing to do with the ICO, it is part of HMCTS as it is a first tier court

[P13DM]

Re: Duff info

That's been fixed now...

[may_i]

The drones never existed

The whole caper at Gatwick was part of an orchestrated campaign to demonise drone flyers and other model aircraft hobbyists. The aims of the campaign have always been to make model flying so onerous that people give up the hobby. That frees the airspace below 400 feet to be sold off to eBay, Google and Amazon for their drone delivery services.

The rules that the EU forced upon the region after the Gatwick jape were deliberately constructed to make being a model flyer expensive, difficult and privacy destroying.

Model aircraft, including multi-rotor craft have never caused an accident where anyone lost their life. The vast majority of model flyers are far more aware of safety than the regulators who have never flown anything from behind their desks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The drones never existed

If you think they'd actually go to those lengths to throw shade on drones then you're deluded. If they didn't want anyone to fly one then they'd simply ban them.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: The drones never existed

So can el'reg reveal that the UK police and airport authorities are all a bunch of credulous morons, or is that information classified?

[Andy 73]

Re: The drones never existed

Whilst a full-on conspiracy is perhaps far-fetched, the essence of the story is pretty close to reality. A number of well known large corporates were heavily lobbying governments at the time to carve out legal air-space for the drone delivery services that they were convinced were going to be the next big thing. As part of that, getting hobbyists out of the air space was an openly stated objective, and there was a great deal of FUD spread around hobby pilots being dangerous, unregulated and unsafe. The campaign was similar to the one that established jay-walking as a crime in America.

The FAA, EASA and CAA were all pushed heavily to 'commercialise' low level airspace for drones, and specifically to regulate potential competitors and individuals out. They did very little to push back.

On top of that, various police and public service agencies saw drones as an exciting new tool, and were very keen to establish their credentials. This resulted in a number of relatively inexperienced public service operators presenting themselves as experts and in the process going to great lengths to disparage the hobbyists that had both more experience and deeper technical knowledge.

Add in the newspapers who are never able to let a good bit of hysteria go to waste, and we had the perfect storm for demonising drones - despite the ever growing evidence that safety was never the earth shattering issue being claimed. We're still in a position where politics and commercial interests are pushing increasingly onerous regulation on operators - and in the UK the lack of support and clarity from the CAA and government has effectively killed any domestic industry.

[IGotOut]

Re: The drones never existed

"The whole caper at Gatwick was part of an orchestrated campaign to demonise drone "flyers and other model aircraft hobbyists"

If you're flying drones or model aircraft near a major international airport, then you should be hung by your thumbs and forced to eat every damn component of the kit, including the box it came in.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: The drones never existed

What if you are a moron dialing 999 cos of something you read on Facebook when you live 50mi away ?

[P13DM]

Re: The drones never existed

Much of the laws were coming in regardless, that said immediately after Gatwick a change was made that it was likely hoped would go unnoticed:

https://www.theregister.com/2019/01/22/ukgov_plans_2500_fines_kids_flying_toy_helicopters_3_miles_aiports/

Gatwick has been used since to justify a national AeroScope Array (there is a public tender for upgrades) along with other gear and was used to justify Remote ID costs (the business case is on WhatDoTheyKnow).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The drones never existed

I'm not sure about the first sighting, but one theory is that Gatwick is at the nexus of three or four police forces, most/all of which turned up, perhaps with their own drones to try and find the original drone... well, you can figure out the rest yourself.

Anon because I have a friend in the police drone squad - formed after this escapade, by the way, and who has assured me really has no concrete knowledge of what actually happened...

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: The drones never existed

If the Police have all the drones then the criminals won't have them .....

Rather like Baldrick's cunning plan to own the bullet with his name on it ...

[LessWileyCoyote]

Re: The drones never existed

Definitely deserves the multiple pointing Spiderman meme.

[jake]

As I said at the time ...

... methinks that the drones that shutdown Gatwick were not in the air. Rather, they were in Management.

The whole kerfuffle was most likely just a figment[0] brought on by mass psychosis ... and I'll bet the report says just that.

People in charge of security will go to great lengths to avoid getting egg on their faces.

[0] OK, some figments.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: As I said at the time ...

I just read about a drone at Gatwick. So i should call the police here and report it ?

[VoiceOfTruth]

Welcome to the free and open west

The document does not exist, lied the government.

[andy gibson]

So what we're saying is, it's -------------------------------------------------------------------->

[Phil O'Sophical]

Or possibly an excess of ----------------->

[BebopWeBop]

What

do they have to hide?

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: What

that they found the Loch Ness Monster, at Gatwick

[Anonymous Coward]

Definitions Are Clearly Needed Here

(1) drone, verb, to witter on in a monotonous low register (no pun intended)

(2) drone, noun, useless male (likely of the bee family)

(3) drone, noun, Chinese manufactured model aircraft, sometimes winged, sometimes with horizontal spinning rotors

(4) drone, noun, allegedly (by US sources) used by Iranians, and allegedly (by Iranian sources) used by US military

The media coverage is best described by item #1.

The politicians doing the talking (or lack of it) are best described by item #2.

The actual hardware being discussed is making millions for the Chinese, per item #3.

.....and who knows which version of item #4 is true.....maybe both!

[Excused Boots]

"The ICO only sided with the DfT on its section 23(1) defense, and agreed that the names of three national security bodies that appear in the report must remain redacted. Everything else must be released.”

Hmm, three national security bodies, the names of which need to remain secret. No sorry I can’t think of two three-letter-agencies and one four-letter candidates.

[Anonymous Coward]

Aliens!

Crossed interstellar space just to buzz Gatwick for an evening.

Then buggered off!

Kids today.

[Terry786]

It was a space ship

[David Newall]

45 minutes redux

This is from the same country who's lie about Iraq being able to launch weapons of mass destruction was key to Bush the Stupid's illegal and disastrous attack.

[Glen 1]

Re: 45 minutes redux

Hey, at least we're mostly staying out of the new and improved illegal war.

Shooting down incoming drones is not "taking part"

[Anonymous Coward]

Warp fields

Supposedly, the 'explanation' for all the fuzzy pictures of UAP's is that the warp field bends light.

Ignoring that a warp field would also shred Earth quite effectively due to the immense gravity so that explanation is clearly incorrect.

Might be a heat effect though, that also bends light.

[eldakka]

York responded by saying he was not surprised, and that because of the drones' speed and size, capturing them on any device at 0.5 miles away was "fantastically challenging."

"Should you wish to come and visit Gatwick Airport to have a look, I would welcome you there, because why it wasn't captured kind of feels obvious," said York. "Gatwick Airport – I am looking behind me – is a huge area. You try telling me what a drone half a mile away at the other end of a runway looks like from here, film it on the best phone that you have got, and show me the footage that says, 'Undoubtedly, this is what we have got.'

"This is one of the fascinating things for us. We feel that we have seen so many pictures, videos, and whatever of drones in flight, but considering the length of the runway, the width of the airport itself, and the distances concerned, personally, having been at the heart of it, I am not surprised we haven't had any."

Then what magical eyes were the eye-witness reports using to see the drones that they reported?

Is he seriously saying that the human eye from the same position would be better at detecting a drone than cameras, many of which have high resolution, magnification capabilities? And what about the CCTV in the airport grounds itself? Surely the airport is blanketed in CCTV that should have caught glimpses of moving lights in the sky?

If the witnesses were closer, within the boundaries of the airport, then that makes the above explanation not just misleading but a deliberate attempt at evasion. Because if those witnesses were within the airport precinct, then their phones/cameras would be close enough to have taken footage (even being generous and agreeing that those from outside the grounds couldn't have seen it). Or is he seriously implying that of at 109 people who reported this, who were then within the airport grounds to have seen this, that none had a camera? In 2018 when phones with a decent camera had been ubiquitous for verging on a decade by then?

[P13DM]

Precisely...

This is the issue, he's suggested human eyes are better than cameras which is false, he also in his evidence details how he sat with the RAF and their system was specifically deployed to capture video and can see a drone at night kilometres away, so the committee have been misled by omission on that fact.

[SteveK]

I would also imagine that Gatwick, like many airports, has a number of keen aviation photographers at various points around the perimeter at most hours of the day, armed with DSLRs and good quality zoom lenses and not just cheap mobile phones. Surely at least one of them would have been able to spot a drone and take a photo or two, particularly if other flights were grounded

[P13DM]

Precisely, a photo of a genuine malicious drone given the global media interest would have been worth a fortune too, so some photographer went there specifically to grab saleable shots.

[trevorde]

Big Brother

"Who controls the present controls the past. Who controls the past controls the future"

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Operation Trebor

Was it an early Amazon Drone delivery to a sussex police officer on duty at Gatwick, with a delivery of a packet of extra strong mints. Subsequent cover up due to the ensuing chaos it caused.

https://thetreborstory.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Extra-Strong-Mints-Peppermint-2011.jpg

Could well have been an order for Mint Humbugs

[arachnoid2]

Im suprised no one at the time

Blamed Aliens or is that just an 80s thing?

[Jon 37]

Re: Im suprised no one at the time

If you see something in the sky you can't identify, that used to be reported as a UFO, Unknown Flying Object. And people would guess that is an alien spacecraft without any evidence.

Nowadays the same thing gets reported as a drone, also without any evidence.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm we're paying a whole lot of money to some lawyers to withhold a likely embarrassing document.

I've more than a bit of experience with the whole FOI lark from both sides and the national security exemption usually wins without much argument.

Which implies that the argument supporting it's use here is a load of shite.

They'll be trying the public interest test here which is basically a test of whether the information being released will be in the the "best interests" of the public, not what is "of interest" to the public.

In this case considering the disruption there is a pretty solid public interest in the information.

Embarrassment, humiliation or loss of reputation of institutions are not valid reasons to excempt inforrmation.

Just waiting on them to pull out some reference to the King in it as that exemption is not subject to a public interest test.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Embarrassment, humiliation or loss of reputation of institutions are not valid reasons to excempt inforrmation.

>

> Just waiting on them to pull out some reference to the King in it as that exemption is not subject to a public interest test.

I recently had an FOIR where the Public Authority eventually provided heavily redacted (in the order of 25% of contents) documents. I then raised a FOI Complaint with the ICO as it was obvious that many of the redactions were of already publically available information and as there was no indication that the Authority had performed any public interest tests.

The ICO case officer actually did a good job dealing with my complaint and eventually the Public Authority resupplied me with new copies of those documents that had practically no redactions at all (only of individuals' names), though not before the Authority tried to use a "excessive time" exemption (they added in time for both redacting and "unredacting" in their estimate despite redaction time not being applicable for FOIRs) to avoid providing the docs.