A drone containing an explosive device was found in the freight terminal of an eastern German airport on Tuesday night, the authorities said.
The drone was found in the cargo area of the Leipzig/Halle Airport, where the Ukrainian cargo carrier Antonov Airlines keeps four of its planes.
What appeared to be a second drone collided with a plane in the air after the airport closed its runways, according to the authorities. That airplane, also a cargo plane, sustained minor damage and was safely rerouted to another airport to land.
Germany’s interior minister, Alexander Dobrindt, who interrupted his vacation to rush to the airport, called the incident a “hybrid attack scenario,” but said it remained unclear where the drone had come from. He did not note the presence of the Ukrainian aircraft at the airport.
The investigation has been taken over by a number of elite government units, including one specialized in counterterrorism.
The suspicious drone was found by an airport employee just before midnight on Tuesday in the cargo section of the airport, close to the southern runway, the police said. It was only a short distance from at least one Ukrainian cargo plane, according to media reports.
The airport closed both its runways immediately after the discovery. Soon thereafter, a plane that touched down at the closed airport and then immediately took off again collided with another object. That object is also believed to have been a drone, although the authorities appear not to have found it yet.
Using a robot, a police explosives unit investigated the drone found in the cargo area and removed its detonator. Then, after analyzing its explosives, the police used a controlled explosion destroy the bomb.
While the passenger terminal of the airport is relatively small, the freight terminal is one of the largest used in Europe. It plays a significant role in supplying Ukraine and had been the site of another suspicious incident in 2024 involving an incendiary device inside a DHL package that detonated just before the package was supposed to be loaded into a jet.
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