UK minister claims drones are no longer a threat

Britain’s security minister Ben Wallace has claimed that the country should no longer be worried about the threat of drones days after disruptions at London’s Gatwick airport which exposed a massive security loophole in the country’s aviation system.

Wallace said in a tweet on Tuesday that security forces were now able to detect drones anywhere across the UK through equipment which he did not specify.

“I can say that we are able to now deploy detection systems throughout the UK to combat this (drone) threat,” read the tweet without elaborating on further details.

The announcement came just three days after a paralysis at Gatwick, Britain’s second busiest airport, where around 1,000 of flights were cancelled due to recurrent sighting of drones near or above the runway.

More than 120,000 passengers were affected by the grounding of the flights which began late on Wednesday and continued until late on Friday.

PressTV-UK police free 2 suspects arrested over Gatwick drones

Police in London says two people arrested over drone disruptions at Gatwick airport are no longer suspects.

Police arrested a man and a woman in connection with the case but they were later released. No one has claimed responsibility for the sabotage act and authorities have ruled out terrorism.

Wallace also said that those who wanted to copycat the Gatwick drone-flying should expect the harshest of punishments.

“Those people who choose to use drones recklessly or for criminal purposes can expect the most severe sentence when caught,” Wallace said in his Twitter post although he did not elaborate whether the government was mulling punishments more severe than the already existing five-year prison terms for those who fly drones within 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) of a British airport boundary.

The opposition Labour Party has criticized the Conservative-led government’s response to the security situation in Gatwick last week, saying it should have been prepared given a boom in the sale of unmanned aerial vehicles and a rise in the number of near misses between private drones and aircraft over the past years.

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