Copenhagen, Denmark — Flights at Copenhagen Airport resumed early Tuesday after being suspended or diverted overnight because of drone sightings. Police reported two to three large, unidentified drones were seen Monday night, forcing outgoing flights at Scandinavia’s largest airport to be grounded and others diverted to airports nearby.
“Copenhagen Airport has reopened after being closed due to drone activity. However, there will be delays and some canceled departures. Passengers are advised to check with their airline for further information,” the airport’s website said.
Local media showed a significant police presence in the vicinity of the airport.
A drone incident the same evening at the Oslo, Norway, airport forced all traffic to move to one runway, according to Norwegian broadcaster NRK. Traffic later returned to normal and it’s unclear who was responsible.
The unknown perpetrator in Copenhagen was a capable drone pilot with the ability to fly them many miles to reach the airport, Jens Jespersen of the Copenhagen Police said during a news conference Tuesday morning. The pilot seemed to be showing off their skills, he said.
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“The number, size, flight patterns, time over the airport. All this together… indicates that it is a capable actor. Which capable actor, I do not know,” Jespersen said.
Police chose not to shoot down the drones due to the risk posed by their location near the airport full of passengers, planes on runways and nearby fuel depots, he said.
Investigators are looking at how the drones reached the airport — whether it was by land or possibly on boats coming through the strategic straights into the Baltic Sea.
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Jespersen said authorities could not rule out the possibility of the drones being part of a Russian hybrid attack.
Russian drone and warplane incursions into Europe raise concern
Security concerns in northern Europe have been heightened following an increase in Russian sabotage activities and multiple drone and fighter jet incursions into NATO airspace in recent weeks, which have seen some of America’s European NATO allies accuse Moscow of serious provocations amid the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Russian drones were shot down by Polish and allied NATO warplanes after crossing into Polish airspace on Sept. 9. Ten days later, Estonia said several Russian fighter jets entered its airspace.
Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics said on social media that Russia was testing NATO’s political and military response and aiming to reduce Western support for Ukraine by compelling countries to redirect resources toward the defense of alliance countries.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday denied that Russian planes entered Estonia’s airspace, saying they remained in international airspace and accusing European nations of “escalating tensions and provoking a confrontational atmosphere.”
Jonatan Vseviov, who heads the Estonian foreign ministry, told the country’s ERR public broadcaster, however, that the government had “irrefutable evidence” of the Russian incursion, adding: “The fact that Russia is provocatively and dangerously violating the airspace of a NATO country is one thing. The fact that it is openly lying to the whole world about it is another.”