Drone with explosives found at German airport, official sees 'new
quality' of threat
[August 06, 2026] By
GEIR MOULSON
BERLIN (AP) — 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.
“Drone sightings, drone threats including in a hybrid context, are
something we know from the past,” he added. “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.
He said questions about details of the explosives, the origin of the
drone and who was behind the incident were a matter for the ongoing
investigation.
The regional interior minister of Saxony state, Armin Schuster, said
authorities were looking for parts of a possible second drone.
Police and prosecutors said an apparent second flying object collided
with a freight airplane after it 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.
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A forensic technician works alongside a bomb-disposal robot near a
Ukrainian aircraft at Leipzig/Halle Airport, where a drone with an
explosive device was found and a detonator was removed from the
object, in Schkeuditz, Germany, Wednesday Aug. 5, 2026. (Hendrik
Schmidt/dpa via AP)
The north runway at Leipzig/Halle was reopened after about two
hours. The south runway was scheduled to be out of action for
maintenance on Wednesday. Authorities said there was no danger to
passengers or airport employees, and flights weren't affected during
the day.
Photos from the scene showed police technicians with an
explosives-disposal robot near a Ukrainian plane. The airport is a
leading cargo hub and the planes located there include Ukrainian
Antonov transport aircraft.
NATO said it was aware of the incident but referred queries to
German authorities.
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 it was supposed to take was delayed.
Western officials have accused Russia and its proxies of staging
dozens of attacks and other incidents across Europe since the
full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than four years ago.
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