Because they're not terrorists. Terrorists use violence (and credible threats of violence) against civilians to achieve political ends.

Instead, the activists here are disrupting air traffic using nonviolent means.

Planes can crash if a drone gets sucked in the engine, so it is a bit worse than a bomb threat actually.

Disrupting air traffic can definitely work towards political ends by beeing a credible threat to civilians. They are terrorists. Period.

That’s ridiculous. It’s disrupting air travel, no different than cutting the power to air traffic control. Protesters do not have a right to infringe on the rights of others to make their case. They can hold up signs outside the airport, but they have no right to put aircraft at risk. That is extremism.

Cutting power to air traffic control makes planes vulnerable to collisions which each other.

Flying drone causes incoming planes to divert to other airports and prevents take-offs - there is no crash risk.

> They can hold up signs outside the airport, but they have no right to put aircraft at risk. That is extremism.

You suggest they should protest where everybody can ignore them and in order to prove your point pull up false equivalences. That is NIMBY'ism.

>Flying drone causes incoming planes to divert to other airports and prevents take-offs - there is no crash risk.

There very much is increased risk whenever a flight plan requires sudden changes- the increased cognitive load on the flight controllers, the increased stress level on the pilots, the increased stress on the passengers... Each one may not seem like much, but it's a hole poked in the cheese.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model

I agree that this is slightly less safe than normal operation. Pilots and flight controllers need to be ready to change plans everyday for various reasons be it weather, crashes, onboard emergencies etc. Landings in heavy cross-wind often are repeated and this is unforeseen and normal reason to change plans.

If drone would pose any significant danger to flight control system then entire system is not working as it should.

It's nowhere close to "cutting the power to air traffic control" as original post claimed.

They are most certainly terrorists. How is "I'm going to blow up an airplane unless you don't fly it" different from "I'm going to fly a robot into an airplane, potentially causing loss of life unless you don't fly it"?

How about "I'm going to aim blinding lasers at pilot flying a plane unless you don't fly the plane?"

"With advance warning, I'm going to fly a robot into an area where your rules will require you to not fly airplanes into the airport" is quite a bit weaker (note the absence of any actual threat to the airplanes).

How is that any different from calling in a fake bomb threat?

It's different from "I'm going to fly a robot into an airplane". My point is that gok's summary of this threat is rather off the mark. As for gok's analogy to a bomb threat... enough has probably already been said about that.

I suppose a bomb is a threat whether the plane flies or not, while a drone is only a threat if the airport decides to fly planes despite knowing there are drones in the area.

Apply common sense: One threatens violence, the other threatens inconvenience. Duh. If a "fake bomb threat," were called, it would have no effect. Bomb threats have to be credible to have weight, which would also an act of terrorism, meant or not.

What, they are just making up rules for fun? If it shuts down the airport, it is because it poses a risk to planes. Otherwise they'd just ignore the drone.

They aren't trying to kill people, so they aren't colloquially terrorists, but they are purposefully introducing risk to the activity of ordinary people.

Giving warnings is more responsible than the alternatives, but it doesn't really excuse putting passengers at risk.

So you’re trying to make a point by positing the most extreme scenarios of what these people could do instead of what they’ve clearly stated they will do-anticipated actions that don’t come close to being the same thing as bombing airplanes or destroying physical infrastructure?

Perhaps I missed reading statements where these people said they would fly an unmanned drone into a plane

I feel like there should be a term for this tactic of debate...

If someone called in a bomb threat and said "I'm only going to blow up the areas between the runways; don't worry, there will be no loss of life or limb", I'm pretty sure that the response would be the same.

They are doing this because they know that the risk of danger is high enough that officials will shut down air traffic.

Exactly. Forcing officials hands by diverting and disrupting normal aviation activity is the exact outcome this group wants. Not a loss of life. It seems that you understand this point quite well.

The response may or may not be the same if a bomb threat were called, but that’s not what happened and it seems you clearly understand this; I’m forced to then ask-why stretch the metaphor to the point of absurdity as you’ve done above?

Um, to me it looks like you're yelling at the wrong person. I think gok is the one with the bomb threat analogy, not shaftway.

Not sure about yelling but I did indeed direct the inquiry to the wrong party. My apologies for this mistake.

Except they are not threatening to fly a drone into a plane.

So if LHR decides to let airplanes fly anyway, they'll stop flying the drones?

Or continue flying them in places where it's forbidden, but planes don't go. Which is not 100% without risk and would leave little time to react if they'd leave them (which is why flying there is forbidden), but very far from "intentionally flying a drone into a plane".

In particular, I strongly suspect that Heathrow has zones which, while not directly in the flight path, are still "too close" and will therefore cause them to stop operating airplanes.

As you say, that's not 100% without risk. It's an erosion of the safety margin, and safety margins are there for a reason.

Quite probably. They're not crazy. Not as crazy as LHR would be in this hypothetical situation.

That would likely lead to a much more serious criminal charge because it's more closely related to terrorism. People who are arrested for making jokes about having a bomb in their suitcase when going through customs at an airport find out very quickly how seriously those kinds of things are taken, particularly in a country with a relatively recent history of terrorist bombings and a high state of alert for terrorist activity.

So they're just taking advantage of the current legal loophole that bombs and drones are treated differently, despite the fact that they can be similarly dangerous to airplanes?

You're being obtuse. The aim of a bomb is to destroy lives and property. The aim of this protest is to stop planes flying, and to do so by flagging what they're going to do weeks in advance. Just the fact that they're talking about a mass of drones might be enough to close Heathrow for the day. The fuss about the recent drone-that-wasn't shows that you may not even need to fly them for this to have an effect, and if they do they're going to be damn well sure that they're nowhere near flight paths.

> You're being obtuse.

Please edit personal swipes out of your comments here. Your comment would be just fine and much better without that bit.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Fair point, perhaps that wasn't well put, although I can't edit it now. However, I did get the feeling that the previous commenter wasn't really arguing in good faith. So perhaps "it feels like you're being deliberately obtuse" might have been better.

I said "bomb threat", not bomb. A false bomb threat is a way to disrupt and annoy an adversary. Like a mass droning.