Germany’s federal prosecutor took on an investigation yesterday into a suspected drone attack at a key freight and military airport in the country’s east and warned of an attempt to compromise national security.
The Office of the Federal Prosecutor said it was investigating a serious attack on Germany’s transport and logistics infrastructure that could have impacted foreign and domestic security.
There is sufficient evidence to suggest that a drone discovered at Leipzig/Halle Airport on Tuesday had been intended to cause an explosion, the prosecutor said in a statement.
“The drone had been equipped with professional explosives and a detonator,” the statement said.
A second object, which prosecutors suspect to be another drone, collided with a cargo jet in the vicinity of the airport as the jet attempted a go-around due to the security incident.
The plane later landed in Hanover with minor damage.
The federal prosecutor took over the probe from a lower prosecutor in the city of Dresden.
Airport workers discovered the drone late on Tuesday at Leipzig/Halle Airport, an important cargo and Nato logistics hub in eastern Germany.
The newspaper Bild cited unnamed investigators as saying that a technical defect prevented the drone-mounted device from exploding.
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt described the incident as a hybrid attack.
The drone was found close to several Ukrainian Antonov An-124 cargo airplanes, among the world’s biggest freighters, according to earlier media reports.
A Reuters journalist saw police collecting evidence in the vicinity of one of the planes early on Wednesday.
Leipzig/Halle is the main base for Nato’s Strategic Airlift International Solution, known as SALIS, which is, among other things, helping to deliver equipment to strengthen the defence pact’s eastern flank using a small fleet of Antonov cargo planes.
Flights were suspended following the incident, impacting German logistics group DHL.
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