A drone was spotted near Sweden’s Gothenburg airport on the evening of November 6, causing the airport to shut down operations and several flights to be cancelled, delayed or diverted, authorities and the airport operator said.
A Swedavia spokeswoman also confirmed the incident and said airspace near Gothenburg-Landvetter airport, which is Sweden’s second busiest. Police are investigating the incident, according to the report.
This is not the first incident involving drones at airports in Europe in recent months.
The day before, Hannover Airport in Germany interrupted operations for 45 minutes due to drones. This was the third time in a week that airport operations in Germany were halted due to drones. On 31 October, Berlin airport was closed for two hours, and on 2 November, Bremen airport stopped work for an hour.
In other EU countries, airports are also regularly forced to stop operations due to unknown drones. In recent weeks, such cases have been recorded in Belgium, Norway, Denmark and France.
Officials in Denmark and Germany did not rule out that the drones were linked to Russia. Danish media found out that during the drone raids on Danish airports, a Russian Navy ship with its transponder switched off was nearby: the distance it was at allowed UAVs to be launched as far as the airports. Russia denies the accusations.