Limerick woman caught up in Gatwick Airport drone fiasco

LIMERICK woman Leanne Moore was one of thousands of passengers caught up in the Gatwick Airport drone fiasco.

The London airport had been closed from Wednesday evening until 6am this Friday after two drones were spotted flying over the perimeter fence and into the airfield.

Corbally native Leanne Moore had travelled over to England for a day trip with her sister Katie when the airport entered lockdown.

Leanne, who is a columnist with The Leader, kept her 37,000 Instagram followers up to date with what was happening as she tried to get home.

She detailed how she and her sister remained in an area of the airport for several hours before retiring to a hotel room for some rest.

The gym owner had her hopes raised a number of times, with flights expected to go-ahead, only to have them dashed again.

Her final Instagram post of her journey late on Thursday night read “@Shannon Airport, five airports latter”.

Because of the drone sightings, outbound flights were grounded, while incoming flights were redirected to other airports across the UK.

About 10,000 passengers were affected on Wednesday.

On Thursday, police in England said the drone flight was "a deliberate act to disrupt the airport" but there was no evidence to suggest it was terror-related.

By Thursday night, over 120,000 people had had flights disrupted and police said there had been over 50 sightings of the drones since the runway was first closed.

On Friday morning, the airport confirmed the runway was open once again.