Dozens of flights were diverted from Copenhagen’s airport on Monday evening after it was closed for several hours because of what the police described as a drone sighting.
The Copenhagen police said on social media that two or three large drones had been “observed flying in the area,” but did not offer further context. A spokeswoman for Copenhagen Airport confirmed the sightings, which she said prompted it to close around 8:30 p.m.
“No aircraft can take off or land at the airport,” the airport spokeswoman, Lise Agerley Kurstein, said in an emailed statement, “and as a result, several flights are being diverted to other airports. The police are investigating the matter, and we currently have no timeline for reopening.”
The airport reopened early Tuesday, though flight delays and cancellations were expected, the airport said on social media.
The police did not respond to requests for further information on Monday evening.
As the news of the drone sightings in Copenhagen was breaking, NRK, Norway’s national broadcaster, reported that a drone had been observed near Oslo’s main airport on Monday night. As a precaution, all flights were moved to one of the airport’s two runways and air traffic was “flowing smoothly.” There was no immediate sign of a connection to the drone sightings in Denmark, the broadcaster said.
As of 10:05 p.m. local time in Denmark, more than 35 flights bound for the Copenhagen airport had been diverted, according to the aviation tracking website Flightradar24.
The closure came after travel at major European airports was disrupted over the weekend and on Monday because of a cyberattack. Earlier this year, airports in Britain were shuttered because of a technical issue involving the region’s flight control system and, on a separate occasion, a fire at a power substation.
In December 2018, drones floating over a runway at Gatwick Airport outside London disrupted hundreds of flights and stranded tens of thousands of passengers during the peak of the holiday season.
Livia Albeck-Ripka is a Times reporter based in Los Angeles, covering breaking news, California and other subjects.
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