How Drones May Kill Commercial Air Travel
A bird can bring a plane down. What could a drone do?
“Over 90 percent of airports in the world are unprepared for drones. Airports, stadiums, borders, oil and gas refineries — they spend a lot of money on ground security, but I think they now need to think about their airspace security.”
— Tim Bean, the founder and chief executive of Fortem Technologies; quote given to the NY Times.
It was late December, most at this time would be thinking about tracking a sleigh and reindeer across the sky. However, Gatwick Airport in England was tracking something smaller and more menacing.
A number of witnesses reported seeing a drone traveling across the sky. This caused a complete stop to hundreds of flights, which stranded thousands of passengers. According to the NY Times, 20 police units searched the grounds of the airport to no avail.
The entire airport was shut down for over 24 hours by a small drone. This also caused chain reactions across Europe canceling flights over multiple countries.
This particular airport had survived attacks from the Luftwaffe in WWII, but was completely helpless against what many see as…
