Police say they are still searching for those responsible for the unprecedented disruption at Gatwick Airport.
But the drones that were flown over the airfield have not been captured and have not been seen since Thursday night. Endangering the safety of an aircraft is a criminal offence that can carry a prison sentence. So how will police find those responsible?Tracking the controller
If the drones were being operated by a typical remote control unit, it would be possible to establish the controller’s position. Police could pick up the controller’s radio signal and “drive around and look where the signals are coming from”, said cyber-security expert Prof Alan Woodward from the University of Surrey. That would only be possible if the drones were being controlled by somebody in the area, which Prof Woodward thinks is a likely scenario. Police have suggested that the operator moved when officers got close, which points to “someone in a van”. A drone was seen so regularly that somebody must have been changing its batteries. Unless, of course, there was more than one drone. However, there have been no sightings since Thursday night. If the operator has fled, there will be no signals to track.Clues in the metadata?
Drones and their controllers emit radio signals, which the police can capture and analyse. While Prof Woodward says there is “not much forensic information in the signals”, there are “some identifiers” in them. This lets two drones work next to each other without signal interference – and could let police identify the drone or controller used, if they managed to record them. It is also possible the drone operator was not at the airport and was controlling the devices over the internet.