Pressure Mounts for Action on Drone Disruption in Europe

German politicians on Friday called for drones that have disrupted operations at Munich Airport to be shot down, as authorities across Europe are under mounting pressure to act in the face of a spate of similar incidents. A meeting of EU interior ministers to be held in the German city on Saturday is expected to focus entirely on security threats posed by the drone incursions.

Drones caused at least 15 scheduled flights to be diverted from Munich Airport between 10:20 p.m. local time on Thursday and 5 a.m. on Friday morning. At least 17 outbound departures were canceled.

The incursions followed a similar pattern to disruptions at multiple airports in Denmark, Norway, Germany, and Belgium. On Thursday night, a swarm of 15 drones was sighted flying over the Elsenborn military base near the German border.

Security forces have been reluctant to shoot down the drones over safety concerns at the public airports. While the Russian military is widely suspected of being behind some or all of the airspace disruptions, police in Norway detained eight Chinese nationals for allegedly flying drones near Svolvær Airport, and three Germans were arrested following an incident at the Mo i Rana Airport near Røssvoll, Norway.

On Wednesday, the French Navy boarded an oil tanker sailing from the Russian port of Primorsk. It is suspected of having been used as a launch pad for drones that disrupted civil aviation operations in Denmark between September 22 and 25.

According to Dyami Security Intelligence, the risk posed to aircraft remains elevated, in part because small drones are inexpensive, easy to use, and hard to track. Some of the drones appear to have been larger than others, fueling assumptions that they were longer-range vehicles fitting the profile of those used by Russian forces in the Ukraine conflict.