An international airport had to shut down temporarily after drones were sighted nearby, leading to significant disruptions on Monday evening. Reports indicated that up to three autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles were spotted in the airspace above Copenhagen Airport in Denmark, prompting a swift response from the local police. Henrik Stormer, the head of the Copenhagen Police, stated that a substantial police presence was deployed in the area.
The airport ceased all take-offs and landings around 8:26 pm local time, as confirmed by Naviair, the company responsible for air traffic control at the airport. FlightRadar’s post on Twitter revealed that by 10:05 pm local time, over 35 flights bound for the airport had been redirected to alternative airports due to the drone activity.
Subsequent updates indicated that a flight from Copenhagen to Paris had to return to the airport for further investigation into the reported drone sightings, with the airfield remaining closed until approximately 11:00 pm UTC. The local police also confirmed the closure of the airport for flight operations due to the presence of two to three large drones in the vicinity.
A spokesperson for Copenhagen Airport informed Reuters that the airspace over the airport had been closed due to unidentified drones. The spokesperson emphasized that the police were actively investigating the situation, and there was no specific timeline for the airport’s reopening. Most incoming flights were diverted to airports in Malmö, Billund, Aarhus, and Gothenburg, while the origin of the drones remained unknown.
A frustrated passenger, Mikael Belstrup, expressed his disappointment on a local TV channel, mentioning the lack of information provided by the airport staff regarding the drone-related closure. In a separate incident, additional drone sightings were reported in Oslo, Norway, near the Akershus Fortress, leading to the arrest of two individuals in connection with the incident.
Copenhagen Airport, the largest airport in the Nordic countries, accommodated approximately 30 million passengers last year and recently marked its centenary in April. The recent drone-related disruptions follow a previous incident in May where a passenger jet narrowly avoided colliding with a drone after taking off from London’s Heathrow Airport.
In another incident in January, a drone came within close proximity of colliding with a Boeing 737 aircraft approaching Gatwick Airport, narrowly avoiding a potentially catastrophic event. These occurrences underscore the growing concerns and risks associated with drone activities near airports.