Gatwick airport closed due drone reported in area

[With The Birds]

It seems like you might expect that they ID a suspect(s) via vehicle or plate due to previous drone/UAS violations?,
or,
the Bobbies visit every one who's vehicle image was captured during a specific time span on specific motorways?

It was reported early on that there was some suspicion that environmental activists might be responsible, if this was creditable there would be an extractable pool of vehicle registrations easily pulled from a govt accessible data source. There are other things that might be done also including eliminating vehicles that frequently travel at particular times or including those that are from outside the area and only within a particular radius of the airport at the relavent times. There are things that can be done.

 

[sar104]

It can’t, or at least it would seem a near impossibility absent other intelligence and investigative efforts.

Assume though that the authorities had intelligence and a suspicion a certain group might be connected with the offending. The surveillance product might be very useful in those circumstances.

You may be surprised how effectively toll road and other traffic and infrastructure monitoring cameras can read vehicle plates.

I wouldn't be surprised at all - I'm reasonably familiar with the monitoring around London. There are no toll roads in that area and the speed monitoring on the M25 isn't using plate recognition (such as on the M4) - it's Gatso radar. I can't think of any plate-recognition systems in use around there. Perhaps someone else will be able to come up with something, but it's not going to be nearly comprehensive enough to be useful.

 

[With The Birds]

I wouldn't be surprised at all - I'm reasonably familiar with the monitoring around London. There are no toll roads in that area and the speed monitoring on the M25 isn't using plate recognition (such as on the M4) - it's Gatso radar. I can't think of any plate-recognition systems in use around there. Perhaps someone else will be able to come up with something, but it's not going to be nearly comprehensive enough to be useful.

The usefulness, for practical purposes, is probably limited to application to identified persons of interest rather than primary identification. I’m not familiar with the area at all however had assumed it would be as if not more advanced than Australia- we have cameras everywhere on main roads that, I know for a fact, provide sufficient resolution to run plate recognition algorithms. A lot of locations also scan Bluetooth and wifi transmissions to place mobile devices in particular areas. Again you need to be looking for a specific entity to know which MAC addresses to search for.

 

[Alvaro L]

stop propagating and condoning goverment sorry excuses and lies, shooting down a drone is so [Removed by Moderator] easy

 

[With The Birds]

stop propagating and condoning goverment sorry excuses and lies, shooting down a drone is so frigging easy

You wouldn’t be able to do it- especially with that.

 

[Alvaro L]

You wouldn’t be able to do it- especially with that.

can you [Removed by Moderator] explain why an ammunition that can shot down birds could not shot down a drone, please

 

[owdfart]

can you [Removed by Moderator] explain why an ammunition that can shot down birds could not shot down a drone, please

You couldn't shoot down the Gatwick drone with a shotgun because there was no drone to shoot down. Had there been, then yes, you could have blasted it out of the sky. Unfortunately, nobody saw one drone, never mind getting a picture of it. If I were investigating this, I would try and find out what kind of drone it was, which would mean releasing a picture of it. The drone found near the boundary fence? Good luck with that.

 

[Alicatt]

Yes there are specialised cameras however, as I had said- most aren’t going to be pointed up and unassisted low light performance will be very poor. The Astro shot you posted- was the camera mounted on a telescope? Was an equatorial mount used? How many frames where stacked in software to give the final image? How much post processing?

Given your experience with CCTV would you expect the sUAS to have been caught by a fixed camera?

First, That was no specialised camera, it was a beta test I had from JVC in 2001, lots of stuck pixels etc. and still testing and tweaking the firmware in it, it was their higher end surveillance camera and was released to the market in 2002, and in 2004 an updated version was released.
JVC Pro Product Overview Page
It was mounted on a Meade 10" LX200R (f9.8) and an alt/az mount not an equatorial mount, no stacking of pictures just raw s-video recorded on to a Sony D8 camcorder and no post processing, it is the raw output from the camera. You could argue that the camera did electronically stack the image in it's internal memory when it was shooting at 32/60sec at the other end the shutter speed went to 1/100000sec and you could use that to freeze and store the image,

Now for a fixed camera to see a drone passing, million to one shot, and if the drone pilot is trying to get seen on the camera maybe the odds would be a bit better.

Number plate recognition is a specialist task for a camera, with higher resolutions being available today I guess it is easier, but back when I was doing it, it was one camera looking at one lane of road, in fact the number plate recognition cameras usually had two cameras inside the one housing, one to take the number plate and one to get an overall view of the vehicle, it was fairly reliable except for Belgian cars as their number plates were the wrong colours in that it was red letters on white background and the NPR cameras used IR light to illuminate the number plate so Belgian ones showed up as white on white if you wanted to catch Belgian cars then we did have solutions and used green light to highlight the red letters as black.

I used to set up entry systems using NPR cameras which would only allow vehicles with the correct number plate in to depots. I had more trouble with the staff trying to sabotage the system than I had with the cameras themselves. We also supplied replacements for the London exclusion zone cameras after the original contractor failed to get a system working.

 

[Dylan1273]

The plot thickens
Drones found near Gatwick ruled out of disruption probe
Drones found near the airport ruled out of disruption and possible confusion with people actually seeing/reporting police drones

 

[Alicatt]

Just seen an article saying that the majority of the drone sightings may have been of police equipment

Edit: Back home now and the link to the story Gatwick Airport drone sightings may have been of police equipment, chief constable admits

 

[Fat Albert]

For all the trash talkers ... Some Gatwick drones 'may have been police devices'

 

[Raptorman0909]

Yes - but two problems. Firstly, most CCTV doesn't read the plates and secondly, which was my basic point, even if you could read the plates - how would that distinguish suspects from non-suspects?

It is quite true that not all CCTV cameras can read plate #'s and I have no way of knowing which if any of the CCTV cameras in the area had that capability.

A car passing by a camera doesn't by itself reveal much of anything and would not, by itself, discern suspect from innocent. But, here's what it might do.

Assume for argument sake that within the roads I mentioned a total daily traffic of 25,000 cars pass. Also assume for argument sake that within that area 1000 people live. If the sightings begin at, say, 9AM then if the perp was from outside the area then they would have needed to enter the area before 9AM -- so you don't have to take the fulls days traffic into account, you have a time to go on. So, let's say that from 6AM to 9AM 5000 cars entered the area and of those 4500 were not residents of the area. We're now down to 4500 cars. But, of the 4500 cars that came from outside how many went to the airport arrivals or departing areas? Did any of the cars that entered the airport not stop, doing a drive through which might be done by someone doing reconnaissance?

So, much can be learned and with appropriate filtering the number of potential cars can be lowered to a manageable number.

But, without knowing if the CCTV cams were capable of plate reading I can't say much more than that. Without plate reading the task will be much greater and short of an actual terrorist attack not warranted. However, it was my understanding that the UK is just about the leader in surveillance using CCTV and it's hard to imagine a major international airport would lack the best methods of surveillance.

One final point of CCTV and plate reading ... with the appropriate gear you could not only read the plate but log the date and time to computer for automated filtering.


Brian

 

[sar104]

It is quite true that not all CCTV cameras can read plate #'s and I have no way of knowing which if any of the CCTV cameras in the area had that capability.

A car passing by a camera doesn't by itself reveal much of anything and would not, by itself, discern suspect from innocent. But, here's what it might do.

Assume for argument sake that within the roads I mentioned a total daily traffic of 25,000 cars pass. Also assume for argument sake that within that area 1000 people live. If the sightings begin at, say, 9AM then if the perp was from outside the area then they would have needed to enter the area before 9AM -- so you don't have to take the fulls days traffic into account, you have a time to go on. So, let's say that from 6AM to 9AM 5000 cars entered the area and of those 4500 were not residents of the area. We're now down to 4500 cars. But, of the 4500 cars that came from outside how many went to the airport arrivals or departing areas? Did any of the cars that entered the airport not stop, doing a drive through which might be done by someone doing reconnaissance?

So, much can be learned and with appropriate filtering the number of potential cars can be lowered to a manageable number.

But, without knowing if the CCTV cams were capable of plate reading I can't say much more than that. Without plate reading the task will be much greater and short of an actual terrorist attack not warranted. However, it was my understanding that the UK is just about the leader in surveillance using CCTV and it's hard to imagine a major international airport would lack the best methods of surveillance.

One final point of CCTV and plate reading ... with the appropriate gear you could not only read the plate but log the date and time to computer for automated filtering.


Brian

All true in principle. But you are orders of magnitude off on the size of the problem. The combined population of just the two towns directly adjoining north and south of Gatwick, Horley and Crawley, is approximately 130,000. The average daily traffic flow on just the main approach to Gatwick from the M23 link road is around 80,000. And you can get to any of the nearby locations of interest without every using one of the major roads.

 

[With The Birds]

You couldn't shoot down the Gatwick drone with a shotgun because there was no drone to shoot down. Had there been, then yes, you could have blasted it out of the sky. Unfortunately, nobody saw one drone, never mind getting a picture of it. If I were investigating this, I would try and find out what kind of drone it was, which would mean releasing a picture of it. The drone found near the boundary fence? Good luck with that.

Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence- yes I stole that from the new earth creationists but it applies here also.... How can you know there was no sUAS(s) involved?

 

[sar104]

Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence- yes I stole that from the new earth creationists but it applies here also.... How can you know there was no sUAS(s) involved?

You just responded to a seven-sentence post comprising an unsupported assertion, an incorrect assertion, an incorrect assertion, a non sequitur, an incomplete sentence and a pointless exclamative. What were you thinking, trying to parse it logically?

 

[With The Birds]

You just responded to a seven-sentence post comprising an unsupported assertion, an incorrect assertion, an incorrect assertion, a non sequitur, an incomplete sentence and a pointless exclamative. What were you thinking, trying to parse it logically?

Perhaps- or to simply highlight the ridiculousness. You didn’t miss it I wouldn’t have thought....

 

[sar104]

Perhaps- or to simply highlight the ridiculousness. You didn’t miss it I wouldn’t have thought....

Agreed. I've just run out of the necessary patience to respond to that kind of post. Anyone who finds it anything other than ridiculous isn't going to be swayed by logic.

 

[Raptorman0909]

All true in principle. But you are orders of magnitude off on the size of the problem. The combined population of just the two towns directly adjoining north and south of Gatwick, Horley and Crawley, is approximately 130,000. The average daily traffic flow on just the main approach to Gatwick from the M23 link road is around 80,000. And you can get to any of the nearby locations of interest without every using one of the major roads.

Given the relative distance the drone pilot would reasonably have to be I would agree that the resident population is more than the 1000 estimate of my earlier post. If the drone was launched from one of the neighborhoods it's hard to imagine with that level of population density that no one noticed. Seems more likely the launch point was a bit less populated. The total volume of traffic on the main roads like the M23 isn't what matters, its the volume of traffic within so only the exits from M23 and the other perimeter roads into the area would be relevant. If I had to guess the more likely launch point would be SW to NW where there are fewer people to catch you. There are downsides to being in a less populated area as you are not one among many but one alone. Criminals find it easier to disappear in a crowd, but launching a drone in a crowd is not a good idea if you're trying to avoid being caught.

Getting back to my prior ... if the perp did any reconnaissance of the area before launching, and it's not unlikely they did, then that could make him stand out in a more singular way. As I said, driving into the airport but not stopping would be something of a red flag.

Ultimately, either the perp is a local living within reasonable range or he's not. If he is, and that is possible, then it would be difficult to identify even if he moved away from his home to launch. There might still be time stamps on CCTV cams if they were plate reading capable and even with hundreds of thousands what percentage of them would travel into the area of the airport. Some might work there of course and there might be a few that are traveling or picking up someone but that wouldn't be in the hundreds of thousands and as mentioned before, there is a time window that limits the numbers still further.

CSI units almost always dust for prints in spite of the fact that not all criminals leave prints -- they don't not do it because the bad guy might not leave a print, they do it because they might leave a print. If only all investigative methods were 100% effective, but of course they aren't. That doesn't mean you ignore the things that might provide the evidence that matters.


Brian

 

[Alvaro L]

Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence- yes I stole that from the new earth creationists but it applies here also.... How can you know there was no sUAS(s) involved?

because people highly interested in producing evidence can not produce any ?

 

[With The Birds]

because people highly interested in producing evidence can not produce any ?

Based on your (arguably most of our) limited understanding perhaps however it is likely you don’t have all the evidence available to you.