German counterterrorism authorities have launched an investigation into an explosives-laden drone found at the NATO-important Leipzig airport, Politico reports.
According to the Dresden prosecutor’s office and Saxony state police, an airport employee found the drone in a restricted baggage area on the 4th of August. A robot from the police’s bomb disposal unit examined the drone before officers disconnected the detonator.
Airport officials temporarily suspended flights and several flights were diverted. One of the diverted planes, belonging to the courier company DHL, collided with another flying object as it departed Leipzig airport. After landing at Hanover airport, the plane had impact marks on its nose. Officials told WELT that the object’s detonator had failed, meaning there was no explosion.
The drone was found just a few meters from the Ukrainian Antonov cargo plane. According to the statement, the drone was equipped with Semtex, an explosive used to bring down a Pan Am flight over Scotland in 1988. All 259 people on board died that time, and 11 others died on the ground.
Leipzig Airport is home to NATO’s Strategic Airlift (SALIS) base,
where member states can access Antonov cargo planes to move military equipment. Leipzig Airport is also the largest airlift hub in Europe for DHL and serves as a maintenance base for some of Ukraine’s Antonov aircraft.
WELT reported that security authorities had classified the incident as a planned attack, but no one had been detained by the evening of the 5th of August. German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt cut short his vacation in Italy to meet with authorities in Leipzig. Saxony’s Interior Minister Armin Schuster described the incident as a “very serious security incident.”
Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Oleksiy Makeyev, admitted that Moscow was behind the planned attack. He expressed hope that German authorities would find out, but said that no one but Russia could be behind it.
The Russian embassy in Germany has not yet commented.
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