UK: London’s Gatwick airport suspends all flights on drone report

London’s Gatwick airport shut down operations Wednesday night after reports of two drones flying over the airfield, a modern-day menace that the aviation industry is struggling to manage. The airport and local police are investigating the incident, Gatwick said in a statement on its twitter account. The closure led to the diversion of more than two dozen incoming flights, according to flight-tracking service Flightradar24. Unmanned aerial vehicles and laser pointers are increasingly becoming a safety threat for aircraft, prompting regulators to come up with new rules against operating the devices near airfields. “In the past, trying to skirt around birds was hard enough and now you’ve got a different kind of bird made out of metal or plastic,” said Mohshin Aziz, an aviation analyst at Maybank Investment Bank Bhd. in Kuala Lumpur. “A drone strike is far, far more damaging than a bird strike.” Gatwick is allowed to operate a limited number of services at night, according to its website. On average, the airfield has 45 to 50 flights a night in the summer and 18 to 20 in the winter, it said. London is served by about half a dozen airports.<br/>