Heathrow drone: Passengers delayed as flights grounded at UK's busiest airport
Transport secretary says military prepared to use equipment in place at Gatwick
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Hundreds of passengers suffered disrupted journeys after sightings of a suspected drone grounded flights for around an hour at Britain's busiest airport.
Heathrow suspended departures after a gadget was spotted in the air near the take-off point on one of its two runways.
Airport chiefs apologised for the disruption to passengers.
The transport secretary, Chris Grayling, said he was preparing to deploy the same military technology used at Gatwick if the west London hub required it to keep planes flying.
A Heathrow spokesperson said: “We continue to work closely with the Met Police to respond to reports of drones at Heathrow.
"Based on standard operating procedures, working with Air Traffic Control and the Met Police, we have resumed departures out of Heathrow following a short suspension."
The sightings came four days after both Heathrow and Gatwick reported they were investing millions of pounds in equipment to prevent future flight disruption.
Just before Christmas, Gatwick was forced to close for three days because of drone sightings, grounding about 1,000 flights.
With planes normally taking off at frequent intervals, the disruption is likely to have knock-on effects for the rest of the evening.
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The Independent's travel editor Simon Calder said that coming after the drone sightings at Gatwick, if it was a targeted attack, airports across Europe would be worried.
Heathrow chiefs apologised for any disruption to passengers after the suspension of flights for around an hour.
A Heathrow spokesman said airport staff were continuing to monitor the situation after flights began again.
He said: "We continue to work closely with the Met Police to respond to reports of drones at Heathrow.
"Based on standard operating procedures, working with Air Traffic Control and the Met Police, we have resumed departures out of Heathrow following a short suspension.
"We continue to monitor this situation and apologise to any passengers that were affected by this disruption."
Department of Transport chiefs were already planning to introduce new police powers and safety rules to tackle the misuse of drones and improve safety following the three-day Gatwick shut-down just before Christmas.
More than 5,000 people responded to a consultation.
One witness, Martin Roberts, said he saw very bright stationary flashing red and green lights.
"I could see the object very clearly for four or five minutes," he said.
It was in the north-west corner of the airport or just over the boundary, he believed.
Heathrow said it was working with both Air Traffic Control and the Metropolitan Police to investigate.
A passenger already on a plane that was delayed tweeted that there was a police helicopter over the runway. Simon posted: "Hope it is just a drone."
A Twitter user called Marko posted: "Well who would've thought that shortly after Gatwick I'd be sitting in a plane at Heathrow waiting for another drone to be removed from the runway area."
Polly Hayes said she had not seen her mother for a week as she had been away in the US, and feared her mum's flight might not be able to land.
Gareth Hutchins tweeted that his family were forced to wait on a stationary plane for more than an hour.
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