Brussels Airport operations halted due to appearance of unidentified drone
Illustrative photo: Brussels Airport suspended operations for an hour due to the appearance of a drone (facebook.com/BelgianFederalPolice)
On the evening of Tuesday, November 4, air traffic at Brussels Airport was halted for safety reasons following the appearance of an unidentified drone. Flight operations were suspended for about an hour before resuming, RTBF reports.
At around 8:00 p.m. local time, Skeyes (the air traffic control authority) received a report of an unidentified drone in the airspace above Brussels Airport.
"For safety reasons, all air traffic was temporarily suspended," said Skeyes spokesperson Kurt Verwilligen.
It is noted that the standard procedure upon the appearance of a drone is to halt flights for at least 30 minutes. During this time, necessary checks are carried out to determine whether there are any other aerial devices in the vicinity of the airport.
Initially, flights were redirected to Liège Airport, but that airport later reported the presence of drones nearby as well. Consequently, flights from both airports were rerouted to Maastricht and Cologne.
"At present, there is no reason to establish a connection between the incidents detected in Brussels and Liège," Skeyes stated.
Flights from these two airports resumed shortly after 9:00 p.m.
Drones in Belgium’s airspace
On the night of November 1, drones were spotted over the Kleine-Brogel airbase in the town of Peer, where US nuclear weapons are stored. Police arrived at the scene but found nothing.
Later, Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken stated that the unidentified drones were spying on fighter jets and munitions. While he did not directly accuse Russia, he hinted that he does not see any other likely culprit for the violation of Belgium’s airspace.
Francken emphasized that a "real drone war" is currently underway and added that Belgium’s Ministry of Defense needs to be prepared for it.
