Flights briefly suspended at Frankfurt Airport after drone sighting

Last Friday flights to and from Frankfurt Airport in Germany were briefly interrupted after a drone was spotted in the area. According to the Associated Press, operator FraPort halted takeoffs and landings at Germany’s busiest airport for 29 minutes as a precautionary measure late Friday afternoon. As with the recent drone scares at Gatwick, Heathrow, and Newark Airport, no evidence of any drones was provided by the Frankfurt Airport officials. It will be interesting to see if any proof will surface in the coming days.

Flights briefly suspended at Frankfurt Airport

According to a spokesperson, air traffic was halted from around 5.15 p.m. until 5.45 p.m.

Initially, airport officials had mentioned that two drones were spotted but they later revised this information and said in a tweet that only one drone was seen.

A drone was sighted today at Frankfurt Airport. Our priority is Safety First. Flight operations were suspended for 30 min. until the Police cleared the situation. Flight operations are back to normal – no chaos.

— Frankfurt Airport (@Airport_FRA) March 22, 2019

The flights were resumed after a federal police helicopter wasn’t able to find any signs of drones in the area.

1,439 flights were scheduled at Frankfurt airport last Friday. 60 of them were canceled but that was mostly because of an unrelated computer program problem at an Air Traffic Control center and not because of any drones.

After the recent drone scares at Gatwick, Heathrow, and Newark Airport, for which no conclusive evidence has been presented that unmanned aerial systems were indeed to blame for the disruptions, it will be interesting to see if any proof of drones will be brought forward by at Frankfurt Airport officials in the coming days.

STAY IN TOUCH!

If you’d like to stay up to date with all the latest drone news, scoops, rumors and reviews, then follow us on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram or sign up for our daily email newsletter, that goes out every weekday at 6 pm.

Buy your next drone through directly from manufacturers, such as DJI, Parrot, Yuneec or retailers like Amazon, B&H, BestBuy or eBay. By using our links, we will make a small commission, but it will not cost you anything extra. Thank you for helping DroneDJ grow!

Photo: F. Rumpenhorst