Worried About Drone Appearance: Gatwick London Airport Pacu Runway Closed For One Hour, 12 Flights Diverted

London Gatwick Airport. (Wikimedia Commons/Hunter Desportes)

JAKARTA - Gatwick Airport, London, England was forced to close its runway for almost an hour due to "an incident suspected of being an unmanned aerial vehicle" on Sunday local time.

A spokesperson for Gatwick said: "Operations at London Gatwick were suspended at 13:44 p.m. while an investigation into the sighting of a suspected drone near the airfield continues," as reported by Sky News, May 15.

"This investigation has now been completed and the airfield reopened at 12:35 p.m."

"Twelve arriving aircraft were diverted to other airports during the course of the investigation however we expect many of them to return to London Gatwick today," he said.

The management added that passenger safety is the airport's priority.

The disrupted flights included a British Airways flight from Mallorca to Gatwick, which was diverted to Stansted Airport. As well as an easyJet flight from Venice which was diverted to Luton Airport.

Meanwhile, seven easyJet flights to Gatwick were diverted to nearby airports during the disruption.

"We are currently arranging onward travel to Gatwick for the passengers," a spokesperson told Sky News.

Much earlier, the Gatwick Airport runway was closed for 30 hours in December 2018, due to an incident involving multiple drone sightings.

The airport, which is the second busiest airport in England, said there were more than 100 drone sightings around the location for three days. The 2018 incident was the first time that one of the UK's main airports was closed due to drones.

The disruption affected more than 140,000 passengers on a total of 1,000 flights. No one has ever been charged with the incident, which Gatwick says constitutes a sophisticated, dangerous and planned attack.

In the aftermath of the incident, the government introduced a new law to expand the no-fly zone around the airport from 0.6 miles (1 km) to three miles.

It is known that those who carelessly or negligently endanger planes with drones, can be jailed for up to five years under British law.