Drones buzzing around Singapore’s Changi Airport have caused 63 flights to be delayed or diverted in the past week, triggering an investigation and raising questions about the motives of the offenders.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore yesterday said that 18 flights at the airport were delayed and seven were diverted the night before “due to bad weather and unauthorized drone activities.”
It had earlier confirmed drones were seen flying near the airport on Tuesday and Wednesday last week. That caused the intermittent closure of a runway, delaying 37 flights and diverting one arriving plane to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
“A multiagency team, including the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore, Changi Airport Group, Singapore Armed Forces and the Singapore Police Force, was activated for the search and locate operations,” the regulator said.
Investigations are ongoing.
No details on the number of drones involved and the perpetrators have been provided by the authorities.
Shortly after news broke of the drone activity at the airport, the Singaporean Ministry of Defence posted a photograph of a soldier pointing a jammer gun at a “rouge drone” on Facebook.
While the photo was not taken at Changi, it hinted at the anti-drone technologies that might be used to track down offenders.
Drones are largely controlled by operators via a radio control link, on a frequency that is similar to Wi-Fi. A jammer gun temporarily disables this connection.
“In absence of a control link, most drones are designed to switch into ‘fail-safe’ mode, and may either attempt to return to its original location or immediately land,” said Foong Shaohui, an associate professor who researches unmanned systems at the Singapore University of Technology and Design.
“It would be possible to identify the operators by analyzing the information stored in the drone” such as pictures and flight data, he added.
Some observers said the incursions, which happened on two occasions and less than a week from each other, could signal the involvement of more sophisticated groups.
Garuda Robotics chief executive Mark Yong took the vast media coverage on the dangers of flying drones around the airport into account.
“Since this is a repeat event ... there is a good chance that this is not an accidental airspace intrusion or an ignorant drone operator,” he said.
Unauthorized drone activity is dangerous around airports because of the risk of collision with planes that are taking off and landing.
Drones cannot be flown within 5km of airports or military bases in Singapore without a permit.
The offense carries a maximum penalty of a year’s jail term and a fine of S$20,000 (US$14,744).
Changi Airport is among the world’s busiest. It handled a record 65.6 million passengers last year, but its executives have named rising fuel prices and trade tensions as challenges going forward.
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
RSS