The British Army used an Israeli anti-drone system in an effort to protect Gatwick after over 120,000 people saw their flights cancelled or diverted as a result of the appearance of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) over the airport runway this week.

After the police tried and failed to neutralise the drone using an off-the-shelf, commercially available system, the Army's Israeli 'Drone Dome' system was called in.

Gatwick was able to re-open its runway on Friday morning, following 36 hours of disruption - but by mid-afternoon reports emerged that the drone had reappeared. 

The 'Drone Dome', made by Rafael, an Israeli defence technology company, was bought by the Army for £15.8 million in 2018 and the technology has been used in Syria to destroy Isis UAVs.

The technology is described by Rafael as an “end-to-end system designed to provide effective airspace defence against hostile drones used by terrorists to perform aerial attacks, collect intelligence, and other intimidating activities”. 

It uses four radars to allow to scan the entire skyline, providing a 360-degree field of supervision.

The British Army version of the system uses a “soft kill” technique - a radio frequency jammer that is used to overload the drone with signals – to neutralise UAVs.