Munich airport was forced to be closed after the night after the drone observations.
Dozens of flights were canceled or diverted because the airport was closed for more than two hours, so that 3,000 passengers were delayed.
The disruptions follow a wave of drone incidents that influence European aviation, close the airports in Denmark and Norway last week and increase safety problems on the continent.
It is still unclear where the drones come from, but European officials believe that Russia is behind them. Moscow has rejected these claims.
In Belgium, also in the early hours of Friday, 15 drones were seen that fly over a military training area in Elsenborn, used by the EU and NATO.
Authorities said that the unmanned aircraft happened to be noticed when they tested a new drone detection system at the basic. The drones then flew across the border to Germany shortly after he was seen.
The Ministry of Defense investigates the incident and origin of the drones remains unknown.
The activities at Munich airport were resumed on Friday morning, but it was expected that delays would continue.
The airport said in a statement: “When a drone is observed, the safety of travelers is the top priority.” It added that stranded passengers received help.
Credit: Courtesy Flightradar24.com via Reuters
Bild, a German tabloid, reported that the drones that were seen at Munich airport had a wingspan of about one meter.
They were first seen by residents about Erding, a city about 10 km northeast of Munich while the crow flies, and about 2 km from Munich airport.
The police were immediately sent with “drone defense equipment” to intercept the UAVs, but could not find them, said Bild, referring to German safety sources.
The first observations in Erding imply that the drones may have been launched on the land from a location northeast of Munich and then flew unseen to the airport over rural areas.
In response to reports from the Belgian observations of Drone, Daniel Franzen, the mayor of Buenbach, a Belgian municipality in the area, that he was not warned about any threat of drones.
But he told The Belga News Agency that he was aware of a drone sent across the region to find a missing horse.
Western leaders have warned that the inexplicable drone flights are part of Moscow's growing hybrid war against NATO and his allies.
It comes when Germany is investigating Russia's involvement in a swarm of drones that spied on an power plant, hospital and military shipyard in Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein. A fuel refinery and a regional parliament were also the target for the incident last week.
An internal government memo, published by German media, claimed that the critical infrastructure was measured by the drones operators.
Drone raids are particularly disturbing on German airports due to a strict ban on nocturnal flights, which has been designed to prevent noise disorders for neighbors.
It means that if a large number of flights are considerably delayed in the evening, passengers may not be able to travel until the next morning when the flight ban ends.
Europe is on a high report after Russian drone raids in Poland and Romania and the violation of the airspace of Estonia by the fighter jets of Moscow last month.
In September, 14 European airports or temporarily suspended the activities due to drone raids, the highest count in one month.
Last week the airports of Copenhagen and Oslo, the busiest in the Nordic region, were temporarily closed after low -flying drones swound their limited air spaces.
Mette Frederiksen, the Prime Minister of Denmark, described the incident at the airport of the capital as “the most serious attack on the Danish critical infrastructure so far”.
Two days later, not -experienced drones flew over various airports throughout the country, including two used by the army.
Officials called it a “hybrid attack”, but were careful not to point their finger directly to Russia. Mrs. Frederiksen has suggested that Moscow was involved.
Denmark forbade all civil drone flights after the incident and organized a top of European leaders in Copenhagen in which they promised to support defense plans against Russian drones.
Vladimir Putin made jokes on Thursday that he would no longer fly drones over Denmark, despite the fact that Moscow refused responsibility for the incidents.
Credit: Reuters
Researchers try to determine whether a ship of the “shadow fleet” of Russia can be responsible for launching the drone flights about European airports and other infrastructure.
The Boracay, an 18-year-old tanker, left Russia on September 20 and sailed through the Baltic Sea, plinth around Northern Denmark and Germany before reaching the west coast of France.
A telegraph analysis of following data places the ship near the inexplicable drone raids and on the same data.
Earlier this week it was boarded by French soldiers and two of his crew members were arrested on suspicion of performing what Emmanuel Macron called “serious violations”.
The Benin flagship has been blacklisted by the European Union as part of the Russian aging shadow fleet of oil tankers, which supplies dozens of billions of euros to Moscow and finances up to 40 percent of its war efforts.
The tanker resumed his journey to the Suez Canal, data from Maritime websites Marine Traffic and Vesselfinder showed Friday morning. The Chinese captain was back on board, a source told AFP.
