Eindhoven Airport, the second busiest airport in the Netherlands, was temporarily closed due to the sighting of several unidentified drones in the nearby airspace. Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans said police and soldiers had been deployed, an investigation had been opened, and an anti-drone defense system was ready to intervene. Some arriving flights were diverted to other nearby airports, such as Rotterdam-The Hague and Brussels.
Eindhoven Airport is located in the south of the Netherlands, near the border with Belgium, and is used for commercial flights and military purposes. On Friday evening, another drone was alerted over the Volkel air base, located about forty kilometers to the north-east: for now it is not known where it came from and it is not even clear whether the two cases are related.
In recent months, drones have also been seen near military bases or airports in other European countries, including in Munich, Oslo, Copenhagen and Aalborg, Denmark. In early November, Brussels-Zaventem airport, the main airport in Belgium, and Liège airport, in the east of the country, were also closed for several hours due to the presence of an unidentified drone.
