Munich’s airport was forced to close temporarily during the night after drone sightings.
Dozens of flights were canceled or diverted since the airport was closed for more than two hours, delaying 3,000 passengers.
The interruptions follow a wave of drone incidents that affect European aviation, close airports in Denmark and Norway last week, and increase security concerns throughout the continent.
It is still not clear where drones come from, but European officials believe that Russia is behind them. Moscow has rejected these statements.
In Belgium, also in the early hours of Friday, 15 drones were flying on a military training field in Elsenborn, used by the EU and NATO.
The authorities said that the unmanned aircraft were seen by chance while trying a new drone detection system at the base. The drones then flew across the border to Germany shortly after being seen.
The Ministry of Defense is investigating the incident, and the origin of drones remains unknown.
Operations at Munich airport resumed on Friday morning, but they were expected to continue delays.
The airport said in a statement: “When a drone is sighted, travelers’ safety is the highest priority.” He added that the stranded passengers received help.
Credit: Courtesy of Flightradar24.com through Reuters
Bild, a German tabloid, reported that the drones seen at the Munich airport had a wingspan of about a meter.
The residents saw them for the first time on Erding, a city approximately 10 km northeast of Munich while the crow flies, and about 2 km from the Munich airport.
The police were immediately sent with “drone defense team” to intercept the UAV, but they couldn’t find them, said Bild, citing German security sources.
The initial sightings in Erding imply that drones can have been launched by land from a place to the northeast of Munich and then flew to the airport without being seen on rural areas.
Responding to the reports of the sightings of Belgian drones, Daniel Franzen, the mayor of Butebach, a Belgian municipality in the area, said he was not alerted to any threat raised by the drones.
But he told the Belgian news agency that he was aware that a drone was sent by the region to find a lost horse.
Western leaders have warned that inexplicable drones flights are part of Moscow’s growing hybrid war against NATO and its allies.
It occurs when Germany is investigating Russia’s participation in a swarm of drones that was spying on an energy plant, hospital and a military shipyard in Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein. A fuel refinery and a regional parliament were also attacked in the incident last week.
An internal government memorandum, published by the German media, said the drones operators were measured by critical infrastructure.
Drones raids are particularly harmful to German airports due to a strict prohibition of night flights, which is designed to avoid noise disturbances for neighbors.
It means that if a large number of flights are significantly delayed during the night, passengers may not be able to travel to the next morning when the flight ban.
Europe is on a maximum alert after Russian drone raids in Poland and Romania and the violation of Estonia’s airspace due to Moscow’s combat planes last month.
In September, 14 European airports closed or suspended operations temporarily due to drone raids, the highest count in a single month.
Last week, Copenhagen and Oslo airports, the busiest in the Nordic region, closed temporarily after low -flight drones violated their restricted air spaces.
Mette Frederiksen, Prime Minister of Denmark, described the incident at the capital’s airport as “the most serious attack against Danish critical infrastructure to date.”
Two days later, unidentified drones flew over several airports throughout the country, including two used by the military.
The authorities referred to him as a “hybrid attack”, but they were cautious not to point the finger directly to Russia. Mrs. Frederiksen suggested that Moscow was involved.
Denmark prohibited all civil drones flights after the incident and organized a summit of European leaders in Copenhagen during which they committed themselves to defense plans against Russian drones.
Vladimir Putin joked on Thursday that Drones would no longer fly on Denmark, although Moscow denied the responsibility of the incidents.
Credit: Reuters
The researchers are trying to determine if a ship that belongs to the “shadow fleet” of Russia could be responsible for throwing drones flights on European airports and another infrastructure.
El Boracay, an 18 -year -old oil tanker, left Russia on September 20 and sailed through the Baltic, eating northern Denmark and Germany before reaching the west coast of France.
A telegraph analysis of the follow -up data places the ship in the vicinity of the incursions of inexplicable drones and on the same dates.
Earlier this week, he was approached by French soldiers and two of the members of his crew were arrested under suspicion of carrying out what Emmanuel Macron called “serious crimes.”
The Benin flag vessel has been blacklighted by the European Union as part of the Russian oil shadow fleet, which offers tens of billions of euros to Moscow and finance up to 40 percent of its war effort.
The oil tanker resumed his trip to the Suez channel, the data of the maritime websites, the marine traffic and the boat showed Friday morning. His Chinese captain was back on board, a source told AFP.
(Tagstotranslate) Munich Airport (T) Moscow (T) Russia
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