Flights at London Gatwick were grounded for more than 19 hours, stranding tens of thousands of travelers, forcing flights to reroute and sending disruption rippling through European transit networks. The culprit? Easily available drones flying illegally over the runway, preventing planes from taking off and leaving London’s second-busiest airport in chaos.
The ongoing shutdown at Gatwick demonstrates how even small disruptions can have serious consequences for key infrastructure that current security is ill-prepared to address. After all, even the best body scanners and strictest bag searches aren’t going to stop an off-site drone operator.
Despite efforts from the Sussex police, and now the military, to track down the drone operator or take down the machines, they remain active, reportedly taking to the skies every time the airport is set to reopen. Law enforcement has been unable to shoot them out of the sky due to the threat of stray bullets and the lack of specific anti-drone technology. They have at least been able to conclude that the flight are a “deliberate act.”
The incident and similar issues with drones operating near airports around the world raises serious questions about both the vulnerability of infrastructure and government responses to malicious applications of new technology.
Although British Prime Minister Theresa May said that the U.K. had already passed legislation that banned the operation of drones close to airports, there are no adequate countermeasures in place to prevent such flights, nor is there a clear understanding of the disruptive applications of drone technology. This leaves the police and military scrambling to develop a solution to the escalating delays.
Airports shut down by drones, however, are not the only scenario where new technology could seriously disrupt critical infrastructure that governments are ill-prepared to address.
Earlier this month, for example, a report prepared by the President’s National Infrastructure Advisory Council, warned that the U.S. power grid could be a potential target for attack causing a massive blackout — the second recent report to raise serious concerns about a long-term blackout.
Just imagine if this confrontation at Gatwick were the work of the Russians. Would this not be a good way to cripple Britain? The lesson is that malicious actors, foreign and domestic, can target key infrastructure in ways we haven’t thought of. And this threat won’t go away anytime soon, especially as international tensions rise.
The U.S. and its allies need to learn from the incidents like the ongoing shutdown at Gatwick, because the next one could be worse. There’s potential for a power-grid shutdown, and continued unpreparedness for this sort of event will only lead to more and bigger such incidents.
