Flights suspended at Britain's Gatwick airport after drones spotted

LONDON (Reuters) - Passengers flying via London Gatwick will face at least another 24 hours of disruption after several drone sightings forced Britain's second busiest airport to shut its runway, causing delays to thousands of Christmas travelers.

Authorities at Gatwick halted flights at 2200 GMT on Wednesday after two drones were spotted flying near its airfield.

Police said they believed the actions were deliberate and more than 20 units were searching for the drone operators on Thursday, when the airport had expected to handle around 115,000 passengers.

"Public safety is paramount and we will take all available actions to disrupt this deliberate act," Sussex Police said in a statement. "There are no indications to suggest this is terror related."

Gatwick's Chief Operating Officer Chris Woodroofe could not say when flights would resume and warned that the knock-on effects from the airport closure would last for more than 24 hours.

Police and airport reports talk of sightings of more than one drone. Woodroofe described one of the drones as a heavy industrial drone.

"It's definitely not a standard, off-the-shelf type drone," he said on BBC radio. "Given what has happened I definitely believe it is a deliberate act, yes."

The airport and Gatwick's biggest airline easyJet told passengers to check before travelling to the airport.

"We also have the helicopter up in the air but the police advice is that it would be dangerous to seek to shoot the drone down because of what may happen to the stray bullets," Woodroofe said.

Under British law it is illegal to fly drones within 1 km (0.62 mile) of an airport boundary. The offence is punishable by up to five years in prison.