Police Helicopter Footage Sheds Light on Lakenheath Drone Scare

Remember the Lakenheath drone scare last November that created no drone zones across the UK.

Well the drone was 10 miles away from RAF Lakenheath, it was in the Newmarket area. The police helicopter also has video of the suspected drone.

Ian Hudson asked questions of the CAA and the National Police Air Service (NPAS) and it has to be said that the police have been very helpful.

The Civil Aviation Authority on the other hand less so.

Ian stated, “As it was an MOR logged, I suspect CAA were being evasive on my FOIA, saying there was no Airprox instead of saying it was a MOR. I’ve since gone through the Airprox board process and my FOIA was worded correctly to have revealed the NPAS incident that took place on a mission that was tasked initially to Lakenheath. Yet the CAA denied a drone incident had been logged.”

ADS-B tracks recorded by Mark Dale show the police helicopter arriving from the south, turning around just before Lakenheath and orbiting Newmarket. It also shows a great deal of Luton inbound traffic.

The Police

Ian has a follow up FOIA in:-

Dear Rebecca (National Police Air Service),

I wanted to simply submit a single FOIA, but I’m splitting it in two as I suspect the media will have already asked for the video from the helicopter for this incident (which is the topic of the other FOIA) so this FOIA is asking a few questions in relation to the incident.

1) The flight tracking data on public services that track air traffic, suggest the encounter with the NPAS and suspected drone occurred once the helicopter had flown towards and over Newmarket, could you confirm if this is the case and if not provide as precise a location and time as you can for where the other aircraft was first clearly identified as a potential drone.

2) Given a drone shows up well on the EO/IR and the NPAS helicopters are equipped with very capable FLIR units, could you confirm the model of EO/IR on this particular NPAS.

3) Does the video capture the other aircraft clearly enough to know for certain it is a drone, if so what kind of drone is it, a military jet type drone, a commercial grade multirotor, or a fixed wing FPV style drone, if none of the above could you categorise it as best as possible.

4) The radio comms at the time was overheard by civilians in nearby towns and discussions on this have been posted to social media, the comms suggested the suspected drone was flying at several thousand feet which isn’t particular likely with many consumer grade drones due to flight times involved in flying up, flying around then getting back down again. Could you confirm the height the suspected drone was at.

5) Given NPAS has had success a number of time pursuing drones back to their landing location and a helicopter is far more capable than a drone, with far superior speed, weather/height capability and flight time, according to information you hold, why was the drone not pursued back to its landing location? I’m sure there’s a very good reason.

6) Did the USAF make any request for the NPAS to abandon its mission or clear the area where it was searching? There was a suggestion from the radio comms on social media this may have been the case.

Yours faithfully,

I Hudson

Find this and others here

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/follow_up_to_foi_238574925_incid