Image source, ReutersByBethany BellBBC correspondent, Reporting fromLeipzig
German police are investigating an object suspected of carrying an explosive device, which was found near a runway near Ukrainian planes at Leipzig/Halle Airport on Wednesday night.
Flights to the airport were temporarily disrupted overnight.
The police said that shortly before midnight, “an unidentified flying object” was sighted. As a result several planes, including a passenger aircraft from Mallorca, were diverted to other airports.
They said an object was then found near the southern runway. Police used an explosive detection robot to help them investigate the item.
A police spokesman told the BBC that the object had been spotted close to where Ukrainian Antonov transport planes were parked.
The German Press Agency DPA quotes security sources who said an explosive device with a detonator was attached to the drone.
The airport’s southern runway, which is a major hub for the logistic group DHL, remains closed. Flights on the northern runway resumed at 13:55 local time, according to the police.
Bild newspaper reported that another cargo plane later collided with an unknown object in mid-air shortly after taking off from Leipzig airport last night. Bild said the plane landed safely at Hanover airport, where minor damage was discovered on the nose section.
Saxony’s Interior Minister Armin Schuster has described it as a “very serious security incident”.
There have been a series of unauthorised drone flights in Germany in recent months over sensitive sites including military bases, airports, energy terminals, seaports and logistics companies.
German airports are on high alert. Federal police have warned that the overflights could have been organised by Russian agents.
In July 2024 a parcel burst into flames on the ground at Leipzig airport before it could be loaded onto a DHL cargo plane. There are suspicions it could have been sabotage linked to Moscow.
Russia has denied any involvement in those incidents.
Last year a Chinese woman was convicted for passing on information about flight schedules and cargo movements at Leipzig-Halle airport to a man spying for Beijing.