News - Flights cancelled at Munich Airport after drone chaos.

Munich Airport was forced to shut down temporarily overnight after drone sightings. Dozens of flights were canceled or diverted as the airport was closed for more than two hours, delaying around 3,000 passengers. The disruptions follow a wave of drone incidents affecting European aviation, with airports in Denmark and Norway shut last week and security concerns across the continent heightened. It remains unclear where the drones originated, but European officials believe Russia is behind them; Moscow has rejected these claims. In Belgium, in the early hours of Friday, 15 drones were spotted flying over a military training ground in Elsenborn, used by the EU and NATO. Authorities said the unmanned aircraft were spotted by chance as they tested a new drone-detection system at the base. The drones then crossed the border into Germany shortly after being spotted. The defence ministry is investigating the incident, and the origins of the drones remain unknown. Operations at Munich Airport resumed on Friday morning, but delays were expected to continue. The airport said in a statement: ‘When a drone is sighted, the safety of travellers is the top priority.’ It added that stranded passengers were given assistance. Credit: Courtesy Flightradar24.com via Reuters. Bild, a German tabloid, reported that the drones seen over Munich Airport had a wingspan of around one metre. They were first spotted by residents over Erding, a town roughly 10 km northeast of Munich as the crow flies, and about 2 km from Munich Airport. Police were sent immediately with ‘drone defence equipment’ to intercept the UAVs, but were unable to find them, Bild said, citing German security sources. The initial sightings in Erding imply that the drones may have been launched on land from a location northeast of Munich and then flew to the airport unseen over rural areas. Responding to reports of the Belgian drone sightings, Daniel Franzen, the mayor of Butenbach, a Belgian municipality in the area, said he wasn’t alerted to any threat posed by drones. But he told the Belga news agency that he was aware of a drone being sent up over the region to look for a missing horse. Western leaders have warned the unexplained drone flights are part of Moscow’s growing hybrid war against NATO and its allies. It comes as Germany is investigating Russia’s involvement in a swarm of drones that was spying on a power plant, hospital and military shipyard in Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein. A fuel refinery and a regional parliament were also targeted in the incident last week. An internal government memo, published by German media, claimed that the critical infrastructure was being monitored by the drones’ operators. Drone incursions are particularly disruptive at German airports owing to a strict ban on night-time flights, which is designed to prevent noise disturbances for neighbours. It means that if a large number of flights are delayed significantly during the evening, passengers may not be able to travel until the following morning when the flight ban ends. Europe is on high alert following Russian drone incursions into Poland and Romania and the violation of Estonia’s airspace by Moscow’s fighter jets last month. In September, 14 European airports closed or temporarily suspended operations because of drone incursions, the highest count in a single month. Last week, Copenhagen and Oslo airports, the busiest in the Nordic region, were temporarily closed after low-flying drones violated their restricted airspaces. Mette Frederiksen, the prime minister of Denmark, described the incident at the capital’s airport as ‘the most serious attack on Danish critical infrastructure to date’. Two days later, unidentified drones flew over several airports across the country, including two used by the military. Officials referred to it as a ‘hybrid attack’ but were cautious not to point the finger directly at Russia. Ms Frederiksen has suggested Moscow was involved. Denmark banned all civilian drone flights following the incident and hosted a summit of European leaders in Copenhagen during which they pledged to back defence plans against Russian drones. Vladimir Putin joked on Thursday that he would not fly drones over Denmark anymore, despite Moscow denying responsibility for the incidents. Credit: Reuters. Investigators are trying to determine whether a ship belonging to Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’ could be responsible for launching the drone flights over European airports and other infrastructure. The Boracay, an 18-year-old tanker, left Russia on Sept 20 and sailed through the Baltic, skirting around northern Denmark and Germany before reaching the west coast of France. A Telegraph analysis of tracking data puts the ship in the vicinity of the unexplained drone incursions, and on the same dates. Earlier this week, it was boarded by French soldiers and two of its crew members were arrested on suspicion of carrying out what Emmanuel Macron called ‘serious offences’. The Benin-flagged vessel has been blacklisted by the European Union as part of Russia’s ageing shadow fleet of oil tankers, which delivers tens of billions of euros to Moscow and finances up to 40 per cent of its war effort. The tanker resumed its journey towards the Suez Canal, data from maritime websites Marine Traffic and Vesselfinder showed on Friday morning. Its Chinese captain was back onboard, a source told AFP.