Drone with explosives found at German airport, official sees 'new quality' of threat

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 hide caption

BERLIN — 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.