BERLIN (AP) \u2014 A drone with explosives was found at Germany\u2019s Leipzig\/Halle Airport and the device was defused, authorities said Wednesday, in an incident that the country\u2019s top security official said posed a \u201cnew quality of danger.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both the runways at the major freight hub were closed and several flights, including one passenger plane, were diverted to other airports after a flying object was sighted nearby shortly before midnight Tuesday. An anti-explosives robot was deployed to check an object near the south runway. <\/p>\n
Regional police and prosecutors later said an airport employee discovered a drone near the airport\u2019s south runway with \u201can unknown explosive device,\u201d and the object was examined by police. They removed its detonator. <\/p>\n
That the drone was carrying explosives \u201cis a new quality of danger,\u201d German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told reporters at the airport after interrupting his vacation to travel to the scene.<\/p>\n
\u201cDrone sightings, drone threats including in a hybrid context, are something we know from the past,\u201d he added. \u201cThat a drone armed with explosives is at an airport is a new threat scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dobrindt described what happened as \u201ca hybrid attack scenario,\u201d but didn\u2019t offer more details of authorities\u2019 assessment or specify who might be responsible. <\/p>\n
He said questions about details of the explosives, the origin of the drone and who was behind the incident were a matter for the ongoing investigation.<\/p>\n
The regional interior minister of Saxony state, Armin Schuster, said authorities were looking for parts of a possible second drone.<\/p>\n
Police and prosecutors said an apparent second flying object collided with a freight airplane after it aborted a landing at Leipzig\/Halle because the runway was closed. The plane flew to another German airport, Hannover, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) to the northwest, where officials found slight damage. <\/p>\n
The north runway at Leipzig\/Halle was reopened after about two hours. The south runway was scheduled to be out of action for maintenance on Wednesday. Authorities said there was no danger to passengers or airport employees, and flights weren\u2019t affected during the day. <\/p>\n
Photos from the scene showed police technicians with an explosives-disposal robot near a Ukrainian plane. The airport is a leading cargo hub and the planes located there include Ukrainian Antonov transport aircraft.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n \n Sign up for Morning Wire:<\/strong> NATO said it was aware of the incident but referred queries to German authorities.<\/p>\n In 2024, an incendiary device ignited at a logistics center at the airport and set fire to a freight container, part of a plot that Western security officials suspect<\/a> Russian intelligence was behind. The flight it was supposed to take was delayed.<\/p>\n Western officials have accused Russia and its proxies of staging dozens of attacks and other incidents<\/a> across Europe since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine<\/a> more than four years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERLIN (AP) \u2014 A drone with explosives was found at Germany\u2019s Leipzig\/Halle Airport and the device was defused,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":983536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[166,47116,140876,394675,64,57,117,79331,50,3658,96,103,107],"class_list":["post-983535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-aerospace-and-defense-industry","tag-airport-security","tag-alexander-dobrindt","tag-armin-schuster","tag-business","tag-general-news","tag-germany","tag-leipzig","tag-news","tag-russia-government","tag-war-and-unrest","tag-world","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117046051258683450","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=983535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/983536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=983535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=983535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=983535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n Our flagship newsletter breaks down the biggest headlines of the day.\n <\/p>\n