Hannover Airport closed repeatedly overnight after unidentified drone spotted
Photo: Hannover Airport in Germany (Getty Images)
During the night into Tuesday, Hannover Airport was periodically closed. A drone was spotted on the airport grounds and was pursued by police for two hours, Spiegel reports.
Unknown drone spotted at Hannover Airport
An unknown drone was spotted at Hannover-Langenhagen Airport overnight. As a result, the runway and airspace were repeatedly closed, the outlet reports.
In addition:
- A cargo plane was diverted;
- Several scheduled departures and arrivals were delayed.
Police said that given the infrastructure's critical importance, "the possibility of hybrid activity cannot be ruled out."
However, they currently cannot say whether there is a connection to the drone incident in Leipzig.
Although the German Federal Police has a drone detection system, it did not detect this drone, the outlet noted. Therefore, authorities assume the drone was not a commercially available model that the existing technology is designed to detect.
Drone incident in Leipzig
Earlier, RBC-Ukraine reported that Leipzig Airport in Germany suspended operations on the night of August 5 after a suspicious object was found near the runway.
Germany later reported new details about the incident involving a drone carrying explosives that was found near a Ukrainian aircraft at Leipzig Airport. Work is underway to develop counter-drone measures to ensure readiness for potential new attacks.
It was also revealed that an FPV drone carrying explosives crashed into the wing of a Ukrainian An-124 Ruslan aircraft precisely where its fuel tanks are located. This indicates that the incident at Leipzig Airport was a targeted attack.
In addition, a DNA trace was found on the explosive-laden drone that attacked a Ukrainian cargo aircraft at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany. The same DNA had previously been recorded in Lithuania.
