Almost 3,000 passengers are stranded. The sightings observe related incidents in Denmark and Norway final week.
Germany’s Munich airport has been pressured to droop operations after drone sightings led to the cancellation of 17 flights, the diversion of 15 others, and the stranding of some 3,000 passengers.
The airport mentioned early on Friday that drone sightings have been first reported by German air site visitors management at 10:18pm native time [20:18 GMT] on Thursday, main initially to a restriction on flights which was then upgraded to a full suspension.
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Fifteen flights scheduled to land at Munich have been diverted to airports in Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Vienna and Frankfurt, Munich airport mentioned in a press release.
Germany’s DPA information company mentioned police reported that a number of folks had seen a drone close to the airport, with later sightings of a drone over the airport grounds.
Police helicopters have been deployed, however “no info is accessible on the kind and variety of drones”, a police spokesperson informed DPA.
Airline and airport employees arrange camp beds and supplied blankets and meals to help the virtually 3,000 passengers affected by the flight cancellations and diversions, the airport mentioned.
“When a drone is sighted, the protection of travellers is the highest precedence,” it added.
“You will need to emphasise that the detection and defence in opposition to drones are sovereign duties and are the accountability of the federal and state police,” it mentioned.
Flight monitoring service Flightradar24 mentioned the airport would stay closed till early on Friday.
After reported drone sightings over Munich Airport earlier this night the airport stays closed till 0259 UTC this morning. 14 flights have been diverted. https://t.co/CFDGoduFWa pic.twitter.com/b5hwFI4xVZ
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) October 3, 2025
The closure of Munich follows final week’s drone sightings that pressured non permanent closures at airports in Denmark and Norway.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen advised that Russia could possibly be answerable for the drone disruptions at a number of airports in her nation.
Earlier on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin, talking on the Valdai Dialogue Group within the Black Sea resort of Sochi, joked about European claims that Russian drones had invaded NATO airspace, saying that he promised he wouldn’t do it once more, within the case of Denmark, and that he didn’t have drones that might fly all the way in which to Portugal’s capital Lisbon.
“I can’t. I can’t [send] any extra drones, neither to France nor to Denmark, Copenhagen. The place else do they fly to?” Putin quipped.
“If we converse significantly, we wouldn’t have drones which might attain Lisbon,” he mentioned.
European Union leaders backed plans on Wednesday to bolster the bloc’s defences in opposition to Russian drones as they met within the Danish capital, Copenhagen, days after the airspace intrusions by unidentified drones.
“Europe should be capable of defend itself,” Prime Minister Frederiksen mentioned after the EU summit.
“We have to strengthen our manufacturing of drones, of anti-drone capabilities, and this consists of build up a European community of anti-drone measures that may shield and, after all, additionally neutralise intrusion from outdoors,” she mentioned.
European Fee chief Ursula von der Leyen known as final month for what she described as a drone wall – a community of sensors and weapons to detect, observe and neutralise intruding unmanned plane – to guard Europe’s jap flank.
Her suggestion got here simply hours after some 20 Russian drones entered Polish airspace.
Moscow has denied accountability for the reported drone incursion and has accused European international locations of constructing false allegations to fire up rigidity.
