RAF and police practice ‘hostage scenario’ on BA flight at Heathrow
RAF Typhoon jets were scrambled to intercept a British Airways flight in midair as part of a terrorist hijacking exercise on Friday night.
The Eurofighter jets took off from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire and escorted a passenger plane to Heathrow airport where it was met by Specialist Units from the Metropolitan Police.
Armed police officers and hostage negotiators stormed the 160-seat aircraft as part of the operation, codenamed Exercise Night Star, that started around 10pm last night.
An RAF wing commander oversaw the air force’s response from the BA plane in the joint exercise to simulate a hostage-taking scenario.
Residents reported hearing a loud noise as the jets flew overhead, with data from plane tracking website FlightRadar showing the route of the Typhoons.
Heathrow staff worked with police officers, air traffic control operators NATS and the RAF’s National Air and Space Operations Centre to coordinate the exercise.
A Met Police spokesperson said the exercise wasn’t conducted in response to any specific threat or intelligence and was part of a regular training programme to test procedures and increase collaboration between the agencies.
It came after a major live-play exercise held at a disused terminal building at Heathrow in December 2022 involving more than 200 people.
That saw anti-terror officers, firefighters and paramedics ttest their response to a terror bombing at a fictional concert, with volunteers playing the role of injured concertgoers caught up in the fictional blast.
RAF Typhoons are on permanent standby to respond to any potential threat in or near UK airspace.
They are regularly called upon to rapidly react to suspicious aircraft and frequently participate in planned training exercises.
Last month, a Kenya Airways plane en route from Nairobi to Heathrow was intercepted by RAF fighter jets and diverted to Stansted airport due to a “potential security threat”.
RAF Typhoon fighter jets have also been dispatched in recent years to meet Russian aircraft that enter UK airspace.
Wing Commander Wilkinson, who coordinated the RAF element from the passenger aircraft, said: “Exercise Night Star has provided the rare opportunity for a fully joint and multi-agency end to end assurance of the UK’s Air Defence and Counter Terrorism response.
“Each participating unit has used the exercise to hone their skills and improve their procedures to continue to ensure aviation safety.”
Met Police Chief Superintendent Ian Howells, who leads the force’s Aviation Policing Command, said: “All year round, the Met arranges and takes part in exercises to put the specialist training of officers to the test, in a range of different scenarios.
“Exercises such as this allow us to ensure that, with our partners, we are well-prepared to respond to all types of emergencies – at our airports, or elsewhere in the Capital.
“This gives our officers and staff vital experience, and also means that we can continually refine and improve upon our plans which help to keep the public safe.”
Heathrow’s Director of Operations, Dale Reeson said simulating lifelike scenarios at the airport is “an essential part of our preparedness planning”.
“We worked in close collaboration with the Met Police and RAF as part of last night’s scenario, and the learnings we’ll take from the joint exercise will only help to further strengthen our crisis response capabilities,” he added.
