Drone incursions at airports across London Heathrow (pictured) in January 2026, Denmark and Norway in September 2025 as well as at a nuclear power plant in Belgium in November 2025 have clearly demonstrated how exposed critical national infrastructure (CNI) can be during peacetime, writes Richard Varley, Senior Land Sales Manager at Chess Dynamics.
At the airports, flights were disrupted, operations paused and public concern escalated, all having a significant economic impact without a conventional security breach or a declared conflict.
These incidents are no longer isolated and reflect a changing operating environment where airspace security must be a day-to-day consideration for airports, ports, energy facilities and water infrastructure. Whether the disruption is brief and lacking malicious intent or not, the economic and operational impact, combined with reputational damage, can be significant.
The scale and frequency of drone-related incidents today means that peacetime airspace security is essential for todayโs operational environment and those responsible for securing it.
Evolving security needs of peacetime airspace
The proliferation of low-cost, commercially available drones has fundamentally changed the threat landscape. While many are used legitimately, the same technology can be exploited intentionally or accidentally to gather intelligence, cause disruption or test security responses. Crucially, not every incident is malicious, and, in many cases, incursions are the result of lack of awareness of airspace regulation or poor judgement. However, the impact is broadly the same: restricted airspace is violated, operations are disrupted, and authorities are forced to respond, often with incomplete information and under public scrutiny (both at the time of the incidents and in subsequent reviews).
Despite the changing threat, investment in airspace protection has not kept pace with the evolving risk. Many CNI sites have robust physical ground and cyber security but limited ability to detect, track and understand aerial threats. This means that airspace security is treated as a specialist or secondary concern, rather than a core layer of infrastructure protection.
Building an evidence chain in peacetime
In todayโs environment limited incursions can have political or economic consequences and in a peacetime environment, operators must ensure their response is proportionate, accountable and legally sound. This necessitates decision-making built upon a clear, defensible evidence chain.
The starting point is being able to detect an object in restricted airspace. Operators then need to quickly classify what it is, understand its behaviour, and record verifiable data that can be shared with law enforcement, regulators or other stakeholders. Without this, organisations risk over-reacting, under-reacting, or being unable to explain the decision-making process after the event.
High-quality surveillance and C-UAS systems that combine acoustic, radar, electro-optical and infrared sensing provide the foundation of an effective airspace security solution and the evidence chain. Systems that combine precise detection with visual confirmation enable governments and CNI operators to respond proportionately and credibly, while providing and securely storing the data and imagery that can be shared with law enforcement or international partners.
When supported by intelligent tracking and classification, these capabilities help operators to quickly distinguish between birds, aircraft and drones, and make informed decisions. This is particularly important in environments such as airports or power stations, where soft-kill or non-kinetic approaches to threats, such as electronic or cyber effectors, rely on accurate detection, classification and tracking.
Why modular, scalable protection is essential
It is also vital to consider that the capabilities deployed must reflect the different operational environments that exist across critical national infrastructure. For example, a regional airport, a busy port and a water treatment facility will each operate under different physical constraints, regulatory frameworks and risk tolerances. As a result, airspace security cannot be delivered through one-size-fits-all solution.
Modular, scalable architectures allow organisations to build capability progressively. Operators can start with essential detection and tracking, then enhance coverage, add sensors or integrate additional systems as risk, need and technology evolves. This approach helps with upfront investment and ensures that protection can be strengthened when required.
Scalability is also central to long-term resilience. Drone technology will continue to advance, and threat behaviours will change. Added to this is the potential expansion of the facility site โ for example the need to protect the airspace above a new runway at an existing airport. Systems that can adapt and scale to provide wider coverage without wholesale replacement protect both operational readiness and investment over time.
People, training and integration
The ability to grow and expand the systemโs capabilities also allows teams to evolve and adapt with it, supporting the integration of surveillance and counter-UAS capabilities into existing security teams or with minimal specialist input required. With training, operators can leverage these systems alongside their existing responsibilities, reducing complexity and improving the co-ordinated response to potential threats.
When supported with AI tracking and classification technology, systems such as Chess Dynamicsโ Hawkeye family can detect, identify, and monitor multiple objects even in complex and cluttered environments. This allows the system to work autonomously when constantly searching for threats and only alerting the operator when a potential threat has been identified. This effectively reduces the cognitive burden on security teams, while improving reaction times and overall system effectiveness.
A shared responsibility for national resilience
Protecting critical national infrastructure in peacetime is operationally essential and is a shared responsibility of government, regulators, industry and technology providers. By investing in modular, evidence-driven surveillance and response capabilities now, CNI operators can protect critical assets, maintain public confidence and ensure they are ready for the next incident. Embedding airspace protection as a core layer of security measures will enable CNI facilities to better detect and manage potential violations, while protecting the vital assets that keep the country running.
Visit: https://www.chess-dynamics.com/.
Photo by Mark Rowe: Heathrow perimeter.
