Authorities temporarily shut down Munich Airport overnight after several drones were seen in the area, in the latest mysterious drone overflights in the airspace of European Union member countries.
Germany’s air traffic control restricted flights at the airport shortly after 10 p.m. (2000 GMT) on Thursday and then halted them altogether, the airport said in a statement. Seventeen flights were unable to take off, affecting almost 3,000 passengers, while 15 arriving flights were diverted to three other airports in Germany and one in Vienna, Austria.
Flights in and out of the airport resumed at 5 a.m. (0300 GMT), said Stefan Bayer, a spokesperson for Germany’s federal police at Munich airport.
Authorities were not immediately able to provide any information about who was responsible for the overflights.
The latest in a series of drone incidents in Europe
The incident was the latest in a series of incidents of mysterious drone sightings over airports as well as other critical infrastructure sites in several European Union member countries. Drones also were spotted overnight in Belgium above a military base.
A drone incident in Oslo, the capital of Norway, which is a NATO member but not part of the EU, also affected flights there late last month.
It wasn’t immediately clear who has been behind the flyovers. European authorities have expressed concerns that they’re being carried out by Russia, though some experts have noted that anybody with drones could be behind them. Russian authorities have rejected claims of involvement, including in recent drone incidents in Denmark.
Passengers stranded in Munich
The Munich Airport said in a statement early Friday that there had been “several drone sightings,” without elaborating. Bayer, the police spokesman, said it wasn’t immediately clear how many drones might have been involved. He said police, airline employees and “regular people around the airport” were among witnesses who reported the drone sightings.
After the closure of the runways, federal police deployed helicopters and other means to try to track down the drones, but no signs of them could be found, Bayer said.
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Hundreds of stranded passengers spent the night in cots set up in terminals or were taken to hotels, and blankets, drinks and snacks were distributed to them, the German news agency dpa reported.
Alexander Dobrindt, Germany’s interior minister said he and some European counterparts would discuss the drone incursions, and a “drone detection and defense plan” at a meeting this weekend in Munich.
“We are in a race between drone threat and drone defense. We want to and must win this race,” he said in the western city of Saarbrücken, where he joined German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron at a ceremony to mark the 35th anniversary of Germany’s reunification.
Drones were spotted overnight in Belgium
In Belgium, several drones were spotted overnight above a military base near the German border, Defense Minister Theo Francken told Le Soir newspaper.
The minister did not confirm how many drones were flying in the vicinity of the Elsenborn military base — which serves mainly as an army training facility with a firing range – just after midnight. Belgian public broadcaster VRT said that 15 drones were spotted near the base, which is roughly 600 kilometers (about 375 miles) from Munich.
Francken underlined that the nature of the flights was “suspicious and unknown,” Le Soir said. A defense ministry investigation is ongoing.
‘Anybody’ could be behind the flyovers
Hans-Christian Mathiesen, vice president of defense programs at Sky-Watch, a Danish maker of a fixed-wing combat drone that is being used in Ukraine, said “it could be anybody” who could carry out a drone flyover like the one at Munich airport.
“If you have a drone, you can always fly it into restricted airspace and disrupt activity. So everything from boys not thinking about what they’re doing — just fooling around — to someone that is doing it with a purpose: Criminal organizations, state actors, you name it,” said Mathiesen, whose company is involved in the fast-evolving drone ecosystem.
A state actor could disrupt activities and examine responses “with a minimal level of effort,” he said.
Officials in Russia and close ally Belarus acknowledged last month that some drones used as part of Russia’s war in Ukraine had entered the territory of EU and NATO member Poland, prompting a scramble by Polish and NATO allies in which fighter jets were deployed to shoot them down.
The drone overflights were a major focus of a summit of EU and European leaders in Copenhagen, Denmark, this week.
Authorities have vowed to step up measures to minimize and thwart the threat posed by drones.
A Russian tanker is back at sea
Separately, a Russia-linked oil tanker that authorities in France detained — which had been suspected of involvement in the drone incursions over Denmark — was back at sea on Friday. The ship-tracking website Marine Traffic showed the ship leaving the French Atlantic coast where it was detained and apparently bound for the Suez Canal.
A thorough search by French Navy commandos that boarded the ship found no drones, no drone-launching equipment and no evidence that drones had taken off from the vessel, according to an official with knowledge of the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss it publicly.
The tanker’s name has changed several times and it’s now known as “Pushpa” or “Boracay.” Its route from a Russian oil terminal into the Atlantic took it past the coast of Denmark.
Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels and John Leicester in Le Pecq, France, contributed to this report.
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