dronexl.co Haye Kestelooo october 2, 2025
Drone sightings Thursday evening forced Germany’s Munich airport to suspend operations, cancelling 17 flights and disrupting travel for nearly 3,000
Drone sightings Thursday evening forced Germany’s Munich airport to suspend operations, cancelling 17 flights and disrupting travel for nearly 3,000 passengers. The incident marks the latest in a concerning series of mysterious drone closures at major European airports—but whether these sightings represent genuine security threats or mass misidentification remains an urgent question.
The pattern echoes both recent suspected hybrid attacks in Scandinavia and last year’s New Jersey drone panic that turned out to be largely misidentified aircraft and celestial objects.
Munich Operations Suspended for Hours
German air traffic control restricted flight operations at Munich airport from 10:18 p.m. local time Thursday after multiple drone sightings, later suspending them entirely. The airport remained closed until 2:59 a.m. Friday (4:59 a.m. local time).
Another 15 arriving flights were diverted to Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Vienna, and Frankfurt. Flight tracking service Flightradar24 confirmed the airport would remain closed until early Friday morning.
The first arriving flight was expected at 5:25 a.m., with the first departure scheduled for 5:50 a.m., according to the airport’s website.
European Airports on Edge After Suspected Russian Incidents
The Munich closure comes just days after a wave of drone incidents shut down multiple airports across Denmark and Norway in late September. Copenhagen Airport closed for nearly four hours on September 22 after two to three large drones were spotted in controlled airspace. Oslo’s Gardermoen Airport also briefly closed that same night.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called those incidents “the most serious attack on Danish critical infrastructure to date” and suggested Russia could be behind the disruption. Danish authorities characterized the activity as a likely hybrid operation intended to unsettle the public and disrupt critical infrastructure.
Several more Danish airports—including Aalborg, Billund, and military bases—experienced similar incidents in the following days. Denmark is now considering whether to invoke NATO’s Article 4, which enables member states to request consultations over security concerns.
Russian President Vladimir Putin joked Thursday that he would not fly drones over Denmark anymore, though Moscow has denied responsibility for the incidents. Denmark has stopped short of saying definitively who is responsible, but Western officials point to a pattern of Russian drone violations of NATO airspace in Poland, Romania, and Estonia.
The Misidentification Problem: Lessons from New Jersey
While European officials investigate potential hybrid warfare, the incidents raise uncomfortable parallels to the New Jersey drone panic of late 2024—a mass sighting event that turned out to be largely misidentification of routine aircraft and celestial objects.
Between November and December 2024, thousands of “drone” reports flooded in from New Jersey and neighboring states. The phenomenon sparked widespread fear, congressional hearings, and even forced then-President-elect Donald Trump to cancel a trip to his Bedminster golf club.
Federal investigations later revealed the reality: most sightings were manned aircraft operating lawfully. A joint FBI and DHS statement in December noted: “Historically, we have experienced cases of mistaken identity, where reported drones are, in fact, manned aircraft or facilities.”
TSA documents released months later showed that one of the earliest incidents—which forced a medical helicopter carrying a crash victim to divert—involved three commercial aircraft approaching nearby Solberg Airport. “The alignment of the aircraft gave the appearance to observers on the ground of them hovering in formation while they were actually moving directly at the observers,” the analysis found.
Dr. Will Austin, president of Warren County Community College and a national drone expert, reviewed numerous videos during the panic. He found that “many of the reports received involve misidentification of manned aircraft.” Even Jupiter, which was particularly bright in New Jersey’s night sky that season, was mistaken for a hovering drone.
The panic had real consequences: laser-pointing incidents at aircraft spiked to 59 in December 2024—more than the 49 incidents recorded for all of 2023, according to the FAA.
Munich Already on Edge
Munich was already placed on edge this week when its popular Oktoberfest was temporarily closed due to a bomb threat, and explosives were discovered in a residential building in the city’s north.
Whether Thursday’s drone sightings represent genuine security threats similar to the suspected Russian operations in Scandinavia, or misidentified routine aircraft like in New Jersey, remains under investigation. German authorities have not released details about what was observed or where the objects may have originated.
DroneXL’s Take
We’re watching two very different scenarios collide in dangerous ways. The Denmark and Norway incidents appear to involve sophisticated actors—large drones, coordinated timing, professional operation over multiple airports and military installations. Danish intelligence has credible reasons to suspect state-sponsored hybrid warfare, particularly given documented Russian drone violations of NATO airspace in Poland and Romania.
But the New Jersey panic showed how quickly mass hysteria can spiral when people start looking up. Once the narrative took hold, every airplane on approach, every bright planet, every hobbyist quadcopter became a “mystery drone.” Federal investigators reviewed over 5,000 reports and found essentially nothing anomalous—yet 78% of Americans still believed the government was hiding something.
Munich sits uncomfortably between these realities. Is it part of the escalating pattern of suspected Russian hybrid attacks on European infrastructure? Or is it another case of observers misidentifying routine air traffic in an atmosphere of heightened anxiety?
The distinction matters enormously. Real threats require sophisticated counter-drone systems and potentially invoke NATO collective defense mechanisms. False alarms waste resources, create dangerous situations (like those laser-pointing incidents), and damage the credibility of legitimate security concerns.
Airport authorities worldwide need better drone detection technology that can definitively distinguish between aircraft types. Equally important: they need to be transparent about what they’re actually seeing, rather than leaving information vacuums that fill with speculation and fear.
Following drone sightings late on Thursday and Friday evening and further drone sightings early on Saturday morning, the start of flight operations on 4 October 2025 was delayed. Flight operations were gradually ramped up and stabilised over the course of the afternoon.
Following drone sightings late on Thursday and Friday evening and further drone sightings early on Saturday morning, the start of flight operations on 4 October 2025 has been delayed. Flight operations were gradually ramped up and stabilised over the course of the afternoon. Passengers were asked to check the status of their flight on their airline's website before travelling to the airport. Of the more than 1,000 take-offs and landings planned for Saturday, airlines cancelled around 170 flights during the day for operational reasons.
As on previous nights, Munich Airport worked with the airlines to immediately provide for passengers in the terminals. These activities will continue on Saturday evening and into Sunday night. Numerous camp beds will again be set up, and blankets, air mattresses, drinks and snacks will be distributed. In addition, some shops, restaurants and a pharmacy in the public area will extend their opening hours and remain open throughout the night. In addition to numerous employees of the airport, airlines and service providers, numerous volunteers are also on duty.
When a drone is suspected of being sighted, the safety of travellers is the top priority. Reporting chains between air traffic control, the airport and police authorities have been established for years. It is important to emphasise that the detection and defence against drones are sovereign tasks and are the responsibility of the federal and state police.
The Wi-Peep exploit allows an attacker to covertly locate all of the Wi-Fi-enabled devices in a building quickly using inexpensive hardware.
Norwegian police and military were busy again this week investigating more unidentified drones seen flying over critical energy infrastructure. After a Russian man was arrested for trying to leave Norway with two drones containing lots of pictures, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre likened the incidents to a new form of “hybrid threats.”
