SVT News has visited Gardermoen in Oslo where a central unit for controlling drone flights at several airports in the country has been established. The personnel can detect and document drones, as well as track drone pilots.
According to Nikola Tufekcic, head of the Norwegian Avinor's anti-drone program, the equipment has helped them a lot.
For us, it's a matter of flight safety, says Tufekivic to SVT.
Swedavia is responsible for flight safety at Arlanda. Security Manager Mats Paulsson states that Swedavia never comments on the systems or methods related to security work that they use, but says to TT:
We don't have a large drone central, like Avinor describes.
Equally high safety
Paulsson assures that even if Swedavia uses other methods, flight safety is equally high at Arlanda as at other airports. He points out that the routines are the same, regardless of whether unidentified objects in the airspace are detected visually or in other ways.
Even with technical detection, the airspace will be closed until we are 100 percent sure that there is nothing in the airspace, says Paulsson.
There are no flight safety risks in the handling we have at Arlanda compared to the other airports.
Recently, air traffic at Arlanda was paralyzed for a few hours during the night between the 8th and 9th of September due to suspected drones in the area. However, it is unclear whether it was actually drones.
We follow all procedures and routines for this type of event to the letter. So there was never any flight safety risk associated with this, says Paulsson.
"About time"
The police state that Swedavia has not been able to provide documentation beyond visual observations from last Sunday.
It's about time to review that part to be able to detect drones and, above all, rule out different indications. This involves large costs, says Per Engström, section chief at the police's National Operational Department (NOA) to SVT.
After several incidents, Kastrup in Copenhagen chose to acquire a system against drones.
We have invested in advanced technology to detect and identify drones in the airspace around the airport, said Johnnie Müller, security chief at Copenhagen Airport, to DN last week.
