Who wouldn’t want to fly a drone near big crowds and East Midlands Airport? 
1 Like
Drone flights happen around festivals all the time. I live near where Creamfields happens and they NOTAM it and actively police it for drones.
Why do people fly drones over festivals? Usually to get in the same kind of things people fly them over prisons for.
1 Like
Same happened in Coventry for the big weekend festival. There’s clearly lots of people dumb enough to think it’s a good idea to take a drone and are either being ignorant or just plain have no idea there’s regulations. 
1 Like
Friday marked a second evening of air traffic chaos at East Midlands Airport unfortunately, as more than a dozen flights were delayed or diverted due to drones over the Download Festival - including at least a couple of Ryanair inbounds that diverted to Manchester and had to declare low-fuel emergencies. The local press are all over it (as well as the Daily Express) and of course blame drones. The real issue of course is the idiots who fly them over Donington Park, which is just over the road from the airport and under the short final approach for Runway 09 and the departure path for Runway 27 (well within the flight restricted zone). I appreciate that the flyers are unlikely to be on here as they are not likely to be aware of the laws (or are deliberately flouting them), but incidents such as these and the bad press they generate are not good for the drone industry / hobby.
3 Likes
I’m surprised the DJI drones even allow take off there. Surely geo locked.
You can bypass that in a couple of ways.
I get that. Seems a bit of a coincidence that every single one of these drones has been modified and if they have then these people should really know better.
Where does it say they were all DJI drones? 
1 Like
It doesn’t. hence I said ‘the’
Evidence?
You’re totally misreading my posts.
No - you’re in “DJI mode”. Plenty of drones need no modification and can fly anywhere.
And I get that. Again, Hence I said ‘the DJI’ and not all.
You introduced DJI …
… and that reads that some were.