The incident was on July 2nd. One has to wonder how many times they can reincarnate the story. As with most of these reports there is a lot wrong with this one.
"Unconfirmed reports of a drone sighting led to runway suspension for a total of 14 mins. Operations fully resumed and police investigating."
Does that mean anyone who sees something they think is a drone can close down an airport for 15 minutes? Apparently so.
Previous reports in the same area are likewise suspect.
An Airbus A320 pilot reported that as he was descending through 6,200ft, heading south over London and turning west on to the Heathrow approach, he spotted "two white, orb shaped objects, with no lights or visible markings".
Just 20 minutes later, an air traffic controller coming on duty at Swanwick's London Terminal Control Centre, which controls all London-bound air traffic below 24,500ft, immediately began receiving more reports from pilots of sighting a drone. One described the drone as five feet across, while another said it passed within 50 metres of his airliner.
A Boeing 777 pilot reported a "large white drone, about 2m across and with four 'prongs'" passed down the right-hand side of his aircraft within no more than half a nautical mile. It also reported that one pilot said, after landing, that he thought the drones may have been balloons – something the A320 crew also thought, until the pilot realised they were "twice the size of a standard child's helium balloon" as they passed between 500m and 800m from his aircraft. Many of these sightings are at very high altitudes; one pilot reported a drone at 10,000ft.
A drone flew within 20 metres of a plane on the approach to Heathrow, while another shocked pilots by appearing at 3,000 metres (10,000ft), a monthly update on near-misses has revealed.
If you look at the UFO reports prior to 2015 there were hundreds at least each year. Now there are nearly none. Everything in the sky is a drone.
