What to know as Germany investigates an explosive drone at a key cargo airport

BERLIN (AP) — For the second time in just over two years, Germany’s Leipzig/Halle Airport might have narrowly avoided a potential disaster.

A drone with explosives was found late Tuesday and later defused. The country’s top security official said the incident was a “new threat quality” and indicated it was “professionally” prepared.

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Separately, “an object” collided with a plane Tuesday night, police said. The plane was intact but suffered minor damage.

In 2024, an incendiary device ignited at a logistics center at the airport and set fire to a freight container, part of a plot that Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind. The flight the package was supposed to be on was delayed.

Leipzig/Halle is a major international freight hub. The planes that regularly use it include Ukrainian Antonov transport aircraft.

Prominent German terrorism expert Peter Neumann noted on X that Leipzig Airport is one of Europe’s most important hubs for providing support to Ukraine. It is home to NATO’s SALIS program for strategic airlift. Ukrainian Antonov Airlines has its operational base here.”

Here’s what else to know:

German police press on with investigations

The drone with “an unknown explosive device” was found by an airport employee near the south runway, police said, adding it was being examined after having its detonator removed. An investigation was underway. (isn’t that self-explanatory?)

Meanwhile, investigators started a search on Thursday surrounding the airport for debris from the object that hit a freight plane.

“We are setting out to look for the object that collided with the plane,” spokesperson Kay Anders from the Saxony State Criminal Police Office told The Associated Press, adding that police officers would be deployed for a thorough search of the premises.

The collision happened after the plane aborted a landing at Leipzig/Halle because the runway was closed. The plane flew to another German airport, Hannover, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) to the northwest, where officials found slight damage.

The plane is still in Hannover, but Anders would not say what kind of damage the plane had suffered, citing the ongoing investigation.

Top security official says the incidents don’t suggest “amateur work”

German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt interrupted his vacation and rushed to the airport Wednesday night for a briefing by investigators.

He later told reporters that while drone sightings and drone threats are something Germany has dealt with in the past, “that a drone armed with explosives is at an airport is a new threat scenario.”

Dobrindt described what happened as “a hybrid attack scenario,” but didn’t offer more details of authorities’ assessment or specify who might be responsible.

But he said it was reasonable to believe that such situations “must be very professionally prepared and implemented,” with technical know-how and experience of dealing with explosives.

“All this doesn’t point to amateur work,” Dobrindt added.

Germany’s drone defense challenged

Dobrindt said Germany has a mobile drone defense unit and that there is drone defense technology at airports, but the explosive-laden drone was “conceived in such a way, according to what we know at present, precisely to be able to get around drone defense.” He didn’t elaborate.

“A few months ago, I also made it clear to the public that we need to raise the threat level — moving away from an abstract threat to a high-level threat,” he said Wednesday. “And this is evident right now: the assessment we made months ago — that we are facing a high-level threat — is a reality.”

Neumann, the terrorism expert, added on X that “suspicious drones have only been appearing in significant numbers in Germany since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. The targets are almost always the Bundeswehr, the defense industry, and logistics hubs—in other words, precisely the infrastructure that is central to support for Ukraine.” The Bundeswehr is Germany’s armed forces.