Most airports, airfields and spaceports have a flight restriction zone (FRZ) that applies to drones and unmanned aircraft.  Tom Guest from the CAA RPAS team explains why these FRZs are in place and how they work. 

We also cover guidance for passengers who are travelling with a drone and what to be aware of when you’re at the airport. 

Aaron Bassett from Gatwick Airport explains what happens when their systems detect that a drone has been activated and the impact this can have on airport operations.

Links and resources:

• Travelling with a drone (EASA)
• Details of FRZs and other UAS airspace restrictions (NATS)

If you have feedback or suggestions for future episodes please contact dronepodcast@caa.co.uk.

Voiceover 0:10

Welcome to the CAA Drone Safety podcast.

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA) 0:20

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the next edition of drone podcasts from the Civil Aviation Authority. I'm Jonathan Nicholson from the CAA's communications team. And on today's podcast, we're going to be looking at the interesting subject of drone detection at airports. And actually from a slightly unusual angle of people inadvertently turning on their drone or the drone system while they're at the airport, perhaps, to check it's okay after they've travelled or to do a software update before they go on holiday perhaps and obviously, no intention of flying because they know they shouldn't. But actually, that still causes huge problems to the airport itself. Later on, we're going to hear from Gatwick airport operations team about what the issue causes them. But first of all, we're going to get a bit of background on restrictions around airports and airfields, why they've in place. And we're glad to say we're joined today by Tom Guest from our RPAS drone team. Tom. Hello, did you want to introduce yourself?

Tom Guest 1:19

Hi, I'm Tom Guest, I work here at the CAA in the RPAS team as a Technical Inspector. I've been working here for quite a while as well. One of the oldest members been around for a while. So I'm here to talk about FRZs.

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA) 1:29

Excellent. I think probably longest serving was what you were looking for there Tom! So we talk a lot about FRZs. Lots of people probably don't know what that acronym stands for. So help us Tom what is an FRZ? And where are they? And what do we have to know and do about them?

Tom Guest 1:48

An FRZ stands for Flight Restriction Zone and it's a form of restriction that's applied to unmanned aircraft that are in place around most aerodromes within the UK. So if you think of Heathrow or Gatwick that will have a Flight Restriction Zone established around it. As an operator, a remote pilot you are able to operate within these flight restriction zones, but must first obtain permission from the aerodrome and air traffic control to operate within this airspace restriction. These FRZs are established in order to create an environment in which manned aviation can operate safely and to reduce the risk of a midair collision occurring between an unmanned aircraft and a manned aircraft.

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA) 1:48

Okay, thank you Tom. So, FRZs, each of them are unique. And people shouldn't take the normal dimensions as that's exactly what the ones around their local airfield, airport, or where they're flying are going to be. But roughly what's the criteria and size of restrictions around airports?

Tom Guest 2:47

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA) 3:17

So Tom, is it right then that you need permission to operate in these FRZs? And who do you ask to get that permission?

Tom Guest 3:25

Yes, you are required to gain permission to operate within these FRZs, in order for an air traffic controller to safely deconflict your operation, you as a remote pilot, from the other activities, the other movements that are going on within the airport. Typically, to gain this permission, you'd have to contact the air traffic controller or the aerodrome itself, who would then talk to the aircraft controller at the time of your operation. You find the contact information for the air traffic control within the AIP, the Aeronautical Information Publication, and that's freely available online. Google it or use other search engines if you'd like. And there you can find the information about aerodromes and you can contact them and request permission. Now it is fully within the rights of the air traffic controller to deny you access. But we do have a internal complaint scheme as well if the aerodrome operator is unfairly denying you access to the airspace for reasonable requests. And the CAA will then follow that up appropriately.

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA) 4:26

That's great about the AIP. And that is the official source obviously for aeronautical information in the UK and in each country. Now, we can't recommend commercial products as a regulator, obviously. But there are other ways that people can make those requests aren't there?

Tom Guest 4:41

So as you've just mentioned, we can't really mention any specific products, but there are businesses out there that look to make this process easier for an operator. There are applications available that you can freely use to make this process easier. For example, you would select where you're operating and then the app would then provide you with the information you would need. For example, a phone number to contact the air traffic control in order to request permission. But making the request doesn't automatically grant you permission to operate within that airspace, it is purely a method to make it easier, you still are required to have that permission from the air traffic controller and to cover yourself, it'd be best to have that permission in writing.

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA) 5:21

Thank you for that, that's really good. But in most cases, we're talking about people who actively want to fly within the restrictions that know and look at the FRZs. But I think there are other cases where airports get alerts as well from drones?

Tom Guest 5:36

Yeah, that's very true. So one of our main functions is that we have a regulatory safety management system that gathers intelligence and we perform actions to treat risks. And one thing we have noticed is that airports are now reporting incidences of drone detections within their FRZ of drones being detected at zero feet or within the airport terminal or within places that you wouldn't expect people to be operating for whatever use they want to be in. And it's typically found that these people are travelling with a drone. And this drone has either inadvertently been turned on within their hand luggage or the hold luggage, or they've within the aerodrome to perform an update or whatever they'd like to do. When a drone is detected, now when an unmanned aircraft, to use the correct terminology is detected within an aerodrome environment, the aerodrome is then reacting to this detection. And it's causing operational issues. So we have got one incident here with a drone detected at zero feet, it's likely to be in the passenger's luggage, and the police have attended to react to this detection. And a Mavic 2 was detected in the vicinity of this incident. So it also causes flight delays when an aerodrome is reacting to it. And when an aircraft is being detected on an aircraft. They don't know at that point, if that is a detection where a aircraft is about to have a collision with an aircraft, or if it's within the hold, and it's actually not posing any risk to the flight, its causing the aerodrome to react to that situation.

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA) 7:09

So this is a really interesting angle. And until we got those reports of drones, starting off the alerting systems, we probably never really thought about those cases or that it could happen. But it absolutely makes sense. If it gets turned on by accident, or someone's doing a software update before they go on holiday or checking their drone. That's when the airport is just as likely to get an alert. So that's the kind of thing where we want to try and educate people to not do that, isn't it?

Tom Guest 7:37

Yeah. So the main message we want to say is keep it turned off and be mindful of updating a drone in an airport as this can trigger the detection kit.

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA) 7:45

And that's a really good introduction now to the second part of our podcast where Nathan Lovett from the Comms team here at the CAA went and spoke to Gatwick Airport Operations team about some of the issues they see from their side as an airport where they get these alerts and triggers and the impacts it has.

Voiceover 8:06

You're listening to the CAA Drone Safety podcast.

Nathan Lovett 8:13

I'm here at Gatwick Airport, and I'm joined by Aaron Bassett, who is the Stable Operations Lead here. Aaron, please can you tell us what your team is responsible for on a day to day basis here at the airport.

Aaron Bassett (LGW) 8:23

So my team is made up of two elements. So I have a team of incident operations managers who are responsible for attending any incident and looking to resolve them as quickly as possible. And the other half of my team work in the Gatwick Control Centre. And part of their role is to monitor our drone detection equipment at Gatwick Airport, and then obviously initiate any processes that follow from that.

Nathan Lovett 8:43

So we're here in the south terminal at Gatwick, we've got passengers below us who are coming through just arrived from their flight. Some of them may be having drones, there may be a temptation, you know, they've been travelling with drones, they may be a temptation for them to turn them on check that they're still working after the flight. Why is it so important that they don't do that? What's the impact for your team when someone turns on the drone here?

Aaron Bassett (LGW) 9:04

Safety is key at London Gatwick Airport and any drone that is activated around an airport obviously causes great concern. So the moment that we are notified of a drone activation, we will have to initiate a number of procedures and processes that follow that. And that tends to lead to disruption to a number of passengers, not just the passengers who turn their drone on, it will impact other passengers due to the actions that we have to take. So we really encourage people to not turn their drones on while they're at London Gatwick. It's not that we're anti drones, but we just need to make sure that we are creating a very safe environment.

Nathan Lovett 9:37

And just so people are absolutely clear about the type of behaviour that we need to make sure they avoid so this can be turning on a drone to check its still working, not actually flying it but they're turning it on they may be also turning on the handset. So anything like that can trigger your systems here?

Aaron Bassett (LGW) 9:52

Yeah, that's correct. As soon as that drone is activated, we have a multi layered approach at Gatwick Airport like many other airports do and our systems will detect those drones from the moment it's activated. And we have to treat that as a potential threat at that point until we can prove otherwise. So the actions that we then have to take, as I said, will potentially impact a large number of passengers while we resolve this situation and understand what has happened there. So even if you flick your drone on for a moment, and then turn it off thinking that was just an innocent act, to make sure it was still working, to us as an airport, we need to treat that really responsibly and take the threat seriously. And that will impact passengers.

You were saying before we started recording that this is actually a situation, which you've faced a number of times here. This isn't just theory, and you have actually had this situation occur. Can you tell me about any of those situations?

Yeah, so as you say, unfortunately, this does happen from time to time. And we have had cases within the terminal footprint itself, where passengers are looking to check their luggage into a flight. And as you said, just before going just do that final check of their drone, turn it on, turn it off. To them, it's a really innocent act. To us as an airport, unfortunately, we have then been given a drone notification or an activation, very close to some key, essential pieces of equipment, mainly our runway at London Gatwick, and that means until we can prove otherwise, we have to act with safety in mind. And that can result in all aircraft stopping until we can confirm exactly what has caused that activation and the reasons why. So until we can prove that aircraft may stop. So that simple action may result in all those people sitting on an aircraft now waiting until we can declare that there is no threat to the airport whatsoever to allow them to continue their journey. So the simple act can actually in turn, prove really disruptive to passengers at Gatwick Airport.

And just so people have an idea of the scale of disruption and the impact that it has on your team. Can you talk us through anything in terms of when this has happened, what have been the the timescales involved in terms of that initial trigger, and then from the point where you've then actually be able to remove the restrictions and get the operations back to normal?

So each incident is very different in their own right, so every incident can have different timelines. But it's all down to how quickly we can identify exactly what has caused that activation, try and find the individual that's done that. As we've seen in previous years, they can go on for unfortunately, quite a period of time. As we've now invested in more equipment, we're able to resolve situations quicker. But if you think at Gatwick Airport, we can have over 900 movements in an hour moving off of that runway with all of those passengers. So any stoppage to that process can cause huge disruption, even if one minute to five minutes is a huge disruption to a number of passengers looking to either arrive or depart at Gatwick Airport. So we can tend to resolve these situations quite quickly. But at an airport of this size, every minute counts. So just that 10 second flip could cause us several minutes of disruption and in turn result in many 1000s of passengers being impacted.

Any particular message that you have for passengers that are travelling with a drone, they're even arriving at an airport for flight or they've just arrived. What would your message be to them?

I think our key comms message that we try to share with passengers at London Gatwick is drone responsibly. So do your homework before coming to the airport, understand where you are within the vicinity of the airport where you live. Because if you activate your drone within a certain area of the airport five kilometres, again, we will be notified of that through our systems. So just be considerate of where you are and what you're doing. And if you're able to do those checks in a home, at your home in a safe place before departing for the airport, please do that because any actions you take at the airport can unfortunately impact a number of passengers and not just yourself.

So there we go. Hopefully that's a little bit of an introduction to quite an interesting subject one that certainly until the reports came in, we weren't really aware of being an issue, although obviously, as we've seen from Gatwick, some of the airports were seeing it. So really just a simple message to drone users please. Don't activate your drone in the airport. We know you've got no intention to fly it obviously. But just please remember it can trigger all of the alerts and alarms that the airport has for all good reasons and we don't want to be causing unnecessary delays at airports. So thank you for listening. That's today's podcast on drones from the UK Civil Aviation Authority. Please subscribe, please follow us. Please let us know if there's any other subjects you'd like us to cover. Thank you very much.

Thanks for listening. This is CAA drone safety