Hanover airport briefly halted operations overnight over drone sighting

An unidentified drone was sighted near Hanover/Langenhagen airport in Germany overnight into Tuesday, August 11, according to Deutsche Welle, citing the magazine Der Spiegel. The incident follows a similar case a week earlier at Leipzig/Halle airport in the state of Saxony.

Airspace above the airport was closed for around two hours as a result. One cargo plane had to be diverted to another airfield, while several scheduled departures and landings were delayed.

An airport spokeswoman told the dpa news agency that the runways were repeatedly closed between 4:00 and 5:20 a.m. Six tourist passenger flights departed with delays because of the incident. By morning, operations had returned to normal.

Possible hybrid activity

An internal police report seen by journalists states that, given the critical importance of the infrastructure, the presence of so-called hybrid activity cannot be ruled out — a term used for incidents in which foreign state actors or affiliated groups may be interfering with public infrastructure.

However, the report notes it is not yet possible to establish a link to the incident at Leipzig airport, where a drone of unknown origin equipped with explosives and a detonator was discovered overnight into August 5. Still, the Hanover case also does not appear to involve a commercial drone.

Although airport staff repeatedly spotted the drone, police detection devices did not register its presence. The report notes that despite a modern drone-detection system being operational, federal police received no signals at all.