Explosive drone found hovering near Ukrainian cargo aircraft at German airport
Ars Technica · LC · trust 66/100
A fistful of semtex Explosive drone found hovering near Ukrainian cargo aircraft at German airport Russian attack? Explosive drone targeted parked aircraft at Leipzig airport.
18 A police drone takes off next to Ukrainian Antonov cargo plane at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany on August 5, 2026. Airport workers discovered an explosive drone on the tarmac near an Antonov at the airport. Credit: Jens Schlueter/Getty Images A police drone takes off next to Ukrainian Antonov cargo plane at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany on August 5, 2026. Airport workers discovered an explosive drone on the tarmac near an Antonov at the airport. Credit: Jens Schlueter/Getty Images Text settings Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only Learn more Minimize to nav German police disarmed a drone carrying explosives after it was discovered near Ukrainian cargo aircraft parked at Leipzig airport—and authorities are looking into the possibility of a second drone after an approaching aircraft collided with something midair.
The drone was first spotted by an airport employee hovering close to the ground between two parked An-124 cargo aircraft owned by Ukraine’s Antonov Airlines shortly before midnight on August 4, according to The Guardian . It had apparently been modified to help avoid detection by the airport’s drone defense sensors, said Alexander Dobrindt, federal minister of the interior for Germany, during a press conference.
Dobrindt described the drone as carrying a fist-sized package of a substance believed to be the plastic explosive Semtex. Only a failed detonator prevented the drone from exploding near the Ukrainian cargo aircraft, he said.
German police used a bomb disposal robot to help disarm the drone and later carried out a controlled explosion, according to BBC News .
Contrary to some media reports, the German Interior Ministry has denied that the apparently targeted Ukrainian cargo aircraft were carrying weapons or other munitions for delivery to Ukraine, according to Deutsche Welle . Instead, government officials described the aircraft as having been empty at the time of the drone incident.
The incident forced Leipzig/Halle airport—one of Europe’s largest air cargo hubs—to close to all air traffic for several hours. That forced 19 flights to divert away from the airport , including a Boeing 757 operated by the shipping company DHL that was forced to abort its landing approach, according to the flight tracking service Flightradar24.
As the DHL-operated aircraft started climbing again, it collided with another flying object midair and diverted to land at Hanover airport with minor damage, German police reported in a statement . German authorities are looking into the possibility that the object was a second drone.
German officials have not officially named a suspect behind the attempted attack, but have opened a counterterrorism investigation. Dobrindt acknowledged that “we are dealing with a contest here that possibly involves foreign powers,” and described the incident as a “hybrid threat scenario.”
The incident has already spurred Roderich Kiesewetter, a lawmaker and member of the German parliament’s intelligence committee, to more directly describe Russia as being responsible for the “attempted act of terrorism.”
As a major hub for air cargo, Leipzig/Halle airport frequently oversees the transit of shipments for NATO and the German military. It is also the current home base for Ukraine’s Antonov Airlines, which operates a charter cargo service fleet that includes the world’s largest operational cargo aircraft, the Antonov An-124 Ruslan.
The incident also evoked a potentially telling reaction from Alexander Sosnowski, a pro-Kremlin propagandist who regularly appears as a guest on Russian state television. In a short video posted on Telegram, Sosnowski clearly assumed the attempted attack was a Russian operation targeting the Ukrainian aircraft and expressed disappointment that it had failed, according to The Bild , a German tabloid newspaper.
These latest incidents follow dozens of drone sightings over other European airports, along with military bases, ports, energy and industrial facilities, since 2024. In May, Munich airport in Germany closed twice within 24 hours following possible drone sightings.
Drone incursions have become especially more frequent in Northern and Eastern Europe, given their closer proximity to Russia and the ongoing war in Ukraine. Those incursions have forced fighter jets to scramble repeatedly in response, along with leading to a building fire and injuries in Romania following a Russian drone crash.
But the long-promised European Drone Defence Initiative that was supposed to create the equivalent of a “drone wall” to provide counter-drone surveillance and defenses has yet to materialize in any meaningful way, said Ulrike Franke , a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, in an article for World Politics Review . Instead, individual European countries such as Poland have been building their own national counter-drone systems.
Germany has already provided about $118 billion to support Ukraine since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, according to Deutsche Welle . Beyond supplying weapons and humanitarian aid, Germany has also trained more than 24,000 Ukrainian soldiers and is hosting more than 1 million Ukrainian refugees.
Some of Germany’s latest cooperative ventures with Ukraine have involved joint production of new military drones. Ars recently covered a $100 million deal—reportedly funded by Germany—that is equipping the Ukrainian military with drones capable of performing AI target tracking .
Read the original at Ars Technica →
Open in TruthVane →