A police officer stands guard in the main hall of the German airport Leipzig-Halle in Schkeuditz, eastern Germany, after an explosives-laden drone was found near a Ukrainian cargo plane, Aug. 6. AFP-Yonhap
BERLIN — A drone with explosives was found at Germany's Leipzig/Halle Airport and the device was defused, authorities said Wednesday, in an incident that the country's top security official said posed a “new quality of danger.”
Both the runways at the major freight hub were closed and several flights, including one passenger plane, were diverted to other airports after a flying object was sighted nearby shortly before midnight Tuesday. An anti-explosives robot was deployed to check an object near the south runway.
Regional police and prosecutors later said an airport employee discovered a drone near the airport's south runway with “an unknown explosive device,” and the object was examined by police. They removed its detonator.
That the drone was carrying explosives “is a new quality of danger,” German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told reporters at the airport after interrupting his vacation to travel to the scene.
