That's what the article is saying though. That the entire origin story of "drones over Gatwick airport" is that someone found a damaged drone. That doesn't mean that the damaged drone was ever "over the airport", it just means someone found a damaged drone. No mention of how close to the airport, how long the drone had been there, etc. It could have been in a park nearby and someone crashed it into a tree weeks ago and it fell to the ground more recently.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/gatwick-dron...