Belgium’s Liege airport has temporarily halted flights for the second time in a week due to a drone sighting, the country’s air traffic control service has said.
The disruption comes just three days after drone sightings in the capital, Brussels, and in Liege forced the diversion of many incoming planes and the grounding of some due to depart.
Sightings of drones over airports and military bases have caused major disruptions across Europe in recent months. Authorities in some countries have linked Russia to the incidents, saying they form part of Moscow’s “hybrid warfare” campaign against Europe. Moscow has denied any connection to the incidents.
The Skeyes air traffic control service said it received a report of a drone being spotted over the airport around 6.30am GMT, leading to a closure of the airport for about 30 minutes.
“We have to take every report seriously,” Kurt Verwilligen, a spokesperson for the service, said. He added that flights had resumed.
Flights bound for Brussels airport were also held or diverted late Thursday, according to flight tracking site Flightradar24. The Belgian government called an emergency meeting of key government ministers and security chiefs on Thursday to address what the defence minister called a coordinated attack.
Belgium’s defence minister, Theo Francken, on Tuesday told public broadcaster RTBF that the incident appeared to be carried out by professionals intent on destabilising the country.
He also voiced alarm following a series of unidentified drone flights over the weekend near a military base housing US nuclear weapons and suggested that the incidents appear to be part of a “spying operation”.
The drones penetrated the airspace around the Kleine Brogel air base in northeast Belgium across two distinct phases on Saturday and Sunday nights, he said.
He lamented on Monday that Belgium “is chasing after the threat” posed by such drone flights, adding: “We should have bought air defence systems five or 10 years ago” that can deal with drones.
Germany decided on Thursday that the Bundeswehr would provide Belgium with short-notice support in counter-drone capabilities, the defence ministry said.
Separately, one or more drones were observed at the Gothenburg-Landvetter airport on Sweden’s west coast just before 5pm GMT on Thursday, authorities said, forcing more than a dozen flights to be rerouted or cancelled.
Russia has been blamed for a number of airspace violations, notably in Estonia and Poland, in recent months. But the perpetrators of a series of mysterious drone flights in Denmark and Germany have been harder to pin down.
In neighbouring Denmark, several airports, including Copenhagen, also closed temporarily in September due to reported drone sightings.
On Thursday, Poland and Romania announced they would deploy a new American weapons system, Merops, to defend against Russian drones.
The American-made Merops system, compact enough for a mid-sized pickup truck, identifies and intercepts drones. It uses artificial intelligence to navigate even when satellite and electronic communications are jammed.
Last month, several drones were spotted above another Belgian military base near the German border. The operators were not identified.
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