Heathrow Drone Protest: Two More Activists Arrested As Group Hope To Stop Planes
13 September 2019, 07:00 | Updated: 13 September 2019, 07:11
Two men have been arrested as climate change activists plan to cause disruption at Heathrow by flying drones in the 5km exclusion zone around the airport.
Five members of Heathrow Pause were also pre-emptively arrested on Thursday after they allegedly planned to disrupt flights with toy drones.
Police implemented a dispersal order around the airport ahead of the protest “to prevent criminal activity which poses a significant safety and security risk to the airport.”
The group wanted to use the drones to disrupt flights to highlight the "grave risk or airport expansion during the climate and ecological emergency."
The activists, who splintered off from Extinction Rebellion, said the drones would be flown at head height and away from flight paths so no lives were put at risk.
In the early hours of Friday morning, a live stream was shared on a Heathrow Pause Twitter account, showing two people struggling to get a drone off the ground.
The two men, filming themselves near a road, said they were experiencing "a technical glitch". The device could be seen flashing red and green lights, but did not make it into the air.
But flights began landing at the south west London airport as usual on Friday morning, with the first international flights landing shortly before 5am.
Three men and two women were taken into custody on Thursday after threatening to fly the devices within the 3.1 mile no-fly zone.
Among those taken by police include prospective drone pilots Roger Hallam and Mike Lynch-White.
