Munich airport resumes flights after suspected drones force closure

Flights have resumed at Germany’s Munich airport after unconfirmed drone sightings forced it to suspend operations for the second time in 24 hours.

In a statement on Friday evening, the airport said that flights were stopped at 21:30 local time (20:30 GMT), with around 6,500 passengers affected.

At least 17 flights were also grounded in Munich on Thursday evening due to multiple drone sightings in nearby airspace.

It was the latest in a series of incidents involving drones that have disrupted aviation in Europe in recent weeks.

On Saturday morning, Munich airport said flights had been “gradually ramped up”, but warned that delays were expected throughout the day.

In a statement on its website, it urged passengers to continue to check the status of their flight before travelling to the airport.

On Thursday, authorities in Belgium were also investigating sightings of 15 drones above the Elsenborn military site near the German border, according to Belgian media.

After the sighting, the drones reportedly flew from Belgium to Germany, where they were also observed by the police in the small town of Düren, in western Germany.

Officials have been unable to identify where the drones originated or who operated them.

Germany’s Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has said he will raise the matter of anti-drone defences on Saturday at a meeting of European interior ministers, originally billed as a migration summit.

Earlier on Friday, the minister also promised to bring forward proposed legislation to make it easier for police to ask the military to shoot down drones.

Recent drone sightings across the European Union prompted a leaders’ summit in Copenhagen earlier this week.

Several EU member states have backed plans for a multi-layered “drone wall” to quickly detect, track and destroy Russian drones.

Twenty Russian drones crossed into Poland and Russian MiG-31 jets entered Estonian airspace in separate incidents recently.

Copenhagen and Oslo airports were forced to close after unidentified drones were spotted near airport and military airspaces.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said ahead of the summit that airspace incursions were getting worse and that it was “reasonable to assume the drones are coming from Russia”.

Russia has denied any involvement, while Danish authorities say there was no evidence Moscow was involved.

Speaking to a summit in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin laughed off suggestions he ordered drones to Denmark.

“I won’t do it again. I won’t do it again – not to France or Denmark or Copenhagen,” Putin said.