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HomeWORLDFlights resumed at Copenhagen airport after drone sightings | World News

Flights resumed at Copenhagen airport after drone sightings | World News


Flights have resumed at Copenhagen Airport in Denmark after reports of drones in the air led to delays and cancellations.

Denmark‘s biggest airport was forced to close on Monday evening following the sightings.

Police said two or three large drones had been seen flying in the area.

The airport halted operations at 8.26pm local time (7.26pm UK time) according to flight tracking service FlightRadar.

Around 35 flights were diverted to alternate airports, FlightRadar said.

Image:
Pic: Reuters

An airport spokesperson said police were working to identify the drones but declined to provide further details, citing the ongoing investigation.

The airport was not confirmed to have reopened until midnight local time, but it warned of continued delays and cancellations.

Flights then resumed early on Tuesday, but it came as Norwegian broadcaster NRK reported that a drone incident in Oslo caused the airport to force all traffic to one runway.

Danish police added that the drones appeared to have been sent by “a capable operator,” came from multiple directions and that they disappeared after the disruption.

The force also said there was no immediate evidence that the Norwegian incident was related.

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Officials are on high alert for drones over airports

While Danish police said that there were no signs the drone pilot intended to cause harm during Monday’s incident, security officials are on high alert for any sighting of the objects above airports.

Gatwick Airport in West Sussex was forced to shut down a runway for almost an hour as police investigated a drone sighting in 2023.

Almost five years before that, in December 2018, Gatwick was forced to shut down a runway for almost 30 hours after more than 100 drone sightings over three days.

More than 100,000 Christmas travellers were affected by the airport’s closure, in what was the first time a major airport in the UK had been shut down due to drones.

In the wake of the incident, the government introduced new legislation to extend no-fly zones around airports to three miles.

Last year, the operator of Frankfurt airport in Germany – one of Europe’s busiest – said that air traffic had to be stopped completely on two days in 2023 over drone incursions.

And in America, drone sightings last year forced officials to close down Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, for around four hours.

‘It’s quite scary’

Copenhagen Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jakob Hansen earlier said that the drones had “disappeared”, with officers not having “taken any of them”.

Sky News presenter Jonathan Samuels, who was at Copenhagen airport, said passengers were stuck on aircraft about to take off, while others were in the terminal with limited information about when their flights might depart.

Passenger Louise McFadzean said she was waiting at the gate about to board a flight to Heathrow when she suddenly “saw blue lights on the runway”.

“We were told the plane we were due to get had been diverted to Sweden,” she added.

“It’s quite scary, and I don’t know when I’m going to get home.”

It comes after disruption at Heathrow Airport last week following a cyber attack that also hit other major airports in Europe.

The cyber attack targeted a service provider for check-in and boarding systems.

The “technical issue” that hit Collins Aerospace resulted in 14 flights being cancelled at Brussels Airport on Saturday and several more at Heathrow, Berlin, Dublin, and others.

Passengers complained they were unable to check in online, instead queuing for hours for staff to deal with them manually at desks and departure gates, where they were told their flights would not be taking off.



This story originally appeared on Skynews

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