Drone with explosives found at German airport, official sees 'new quality' of threat

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BERLIN (AP) — A drone with explosives was found at Germany's Leipzig/Halle Airport and the device was defused, authorities said Wednesday, in an incident that the country's top security official said posed a “new quality of danger.”

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.

Regional police and prosecutors later said an airport employee discovered a drone near the airport's south runway with “an unknown explosive device,” and the object was examined by police. They removed its detonator.

That the drone was carrying explosives “is a new quality of danger,” German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told reporters at the airport after interrupting his vacation to travel to the scene.

“Drone sightings, drone threats including in a hybrid context, are something we know from the past,” he added. “That a drone armed with explosives is at an airport is a new threat scenario.”

Dobrindt described what happened as “a hybrid attack scenario,” but didn't offer more details of authorities' assessment or specify who might be responsible.

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.

The regional interior minister of Saxony state, Armin Schuster, said authorities were looking for parts of a possible second drone.

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.

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't affected during the day.

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.

NATO said it was aware of the incident but referred queries to German authorities.

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 Russian intelligence was behind. The flight it was supposed to take was delayed.

Western officials have accused Russia and its proxies of staging dozens of attacks and other incidents across Europe since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than four years ago.