{"id":235991,"date":"2025-07-03T23:48:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T23:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/235991\/"},"modified":"2025-07-03T23:48:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T23:48:13","slug":"mystery-as-4-helicopters-spotted-circling-london-landmarks-as-thousands-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/235991\/","title":{"rendered":"Mystery as 4 helicopters spotted circling London landmarks as thousands watch"},"content":{"rendered":"

A group of four helicopters have been spotted circling London landmarks with thousands tracking them online<\/p>\n

William Morgan<\/strong> Reporter and Chris Ballinger<\/strong><\/p>\n

23:59, 03 Jul 2025<\/p>\n

\"TheThe four helicopters hovering over the Isle of Dogs (Image: MyLondon)<\/p>\n

Londoners’ curiosity has been piqued as a group of four helicopters<\/a>, including one privately-owned aircraft registered as G-RYFF, have been spotted circling the city.<\/p>\n

Taking to the skies from Biggin Hill Airport at 1q.14 am on Thursday, July 3, the four helicopters followed the River Thames and performed multiple loops around Central London<\/a>, particularly around Greenwich Park, the City of London, and the Isle of Dogs, leaving onlookers fascinated.<\/p>\n

More than 2,000 people tracked G-RYFF’s flight path on FlightRadar24, which was spotted heading over New Addington in Croydon, possibly en route back to Biggin Hill, reports MyLondon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One social media user posed the question, “Why are there so many helicopters over Isle of Dogs\/ Cutty Sark? Update: They have all just left and are heading towards central London.”<\/p>\n

\"G-RYFFOne of the helicopters has previously been used in major film and TV productions(Image: Lucy Williamson)<\/p>\n

Online speculation suggests the helicopters might be part of a film or TV production, given that G-RYFF has been previously featured in The Gentlemen on Netflix<\/a>, a James Bond film, and an episode of Clarkson’s Farm.<\/p>\n

This helicopter has become well-known amongst film and TV buffs, with one telling Reddit: “I was watching Gentlemen, by Guy Ritchie on Netflix and the character played by Giancarlo Esposito owns an Augusta registration G-RYFF.<\/p>\n

“The next day I\u2019m watching 3 Body Problem and Mr. Evans, played by Jonathan Pryce owns the same helicopter.<\/p>\n

\"BreakingBreaking Bad star Giancarlo Esposito in The Gentlemen (Image: Netflix)<\/p>\n

Armchair aviation experts pointed out that the helicopter is operated by a firm called Castle Air, which they called “a big name in private aircraft operation in the UK.”<\/p>\n

G-RYFF is a twin-engine Agusta A109S Grand helicopter often used for VIP transport.<\/p>\n

Something it is frequently depicted doing on-screen in Guy Ritchie’s upper-class gangster thriller The Gentlemen, where it transports Esposito’s billionaire character to give a drug-manufacturing aristocrat an offer he can’t refuse.<\/p>\n

\"BandersnatchBandersnatch is an interactive Black Mirror episode(Image: NETFLIX)<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the company that owns the actual aircraft is Bandersnatch Ltd Partnership Inc. ‘Bandersnatch’ is the title of a well-known episode of Netflix-produced Black Mirror.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, two of the helicopters have been spotted with ball cameras, filming the other two aircraft, adding fuel to the theory that they are involved in some sort of filming project.<\/p>\n

To back up the claim, one user on social media replied to a query about the helicopters, stating: “There is film work at Greenwich pier today so probably that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A group of four helicopters have been spotted circling London landmarks with thousands tracking them online William Morgan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,690,393,4884,627,257,451,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-235991","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-dogs","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-james-bond","13":"tag-london","14":"tag-netflix","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114791979920480145","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}