Child freed after 18 hours: hostage-taking at Hamburg airport ended

The armed man who drove his car and his four-year-old child onto the airport apron on Saturday evening was arrested, the police said. According to the police, the crime was probably preceded by a custody dispute with the mother. The airport had been closed since Saturday evening and dozens of flights in Hamburg were canceled – including to and from Austria.

• Also read: Hamburg airport still closed due to hostage taking

“The suspect left the car with his daughter,” the police wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “The child appears to be unharmed.”

This brought to an end a hostage situation that had begun on Saturday in nearby Stade. From there the 35-year-old drove to Hamburg Airport. At the airport around 8 p.m. he broke through a barrier at the gate to the airport apron with his car, in which his daughter was also sitting. He shot into the air on the premises and threw incendiary devices from the car. His car then sat next to a Turkish Airlines plane for more than 18 hours. The police tried for hours to end the hostage-taking without bloodshed – and were finally successful early on Sunday afternoon.

Nerve-wracking effort

During the nerve-racking police operation, flight operations in Hamburg were suspended and the airport was still closed on Sunday afternoon. According to Interior Senator Andy Grote, it was “one of the longest and most challenging operations in recent history” for the Hamburg police. He would like to thank all police colleagues for their strong performance.

According to the police, this was probably preceded by a custody dispute with the mother. According to a spokesman, the hostage taker’s wife, who is said to have been in Stade near Hamburg, reported to the state police about possible child abduction. Negotiations had been going on all night long. The conversation was in Turkish, said Levgrün, who emphasized during the operation: “We are relying on a negotiated solution here.”

Wide-area barrier

The airport remained largely closed on Sunday. The number of flights canceled due to the hostage-taking at Hamburg airport rose steadily. According to information from the airport on Sunday morning, 126 flights had already been canceled between the actual start of operations at 6 a.m. and 11 a.m. Five arrivals were redirected to other airports. 286 flights – 139 departures and 147 arrivals – with around 34,500 passengers were actually planned for the entire day. Already on Saturday, 27 flights with around 3,200 passengers were affected.

On the Vienna Airport homepage, for example, an Austrian flight from Hamburg that was supposed to arrive on Saturday evening at 9:40 p.m. was listed as “delayed”. Three Austrian and Eurowings flights with regular arrival times in Vienna at 11.15 a.m. and 4.40 p.m. or at 8.15 p.m. did not take place on Sunday. The departures from Schwechat to Hamburg at 7:20 a.m. with AUA and one at 8:55 p.m. with Eurowings were also canceled.

Criticism of safety standards

Hamburg airport had already been closed in October, but at that time because of a threat of attack on a plane from Tehran to Hamburg. In July, climate activists from the group Last Generation shut down Hamburg airport for hours. At that time there were calls for security to be strengthened. Despite the hostage-taking, Hamburg Airport sees no failures in securing the area. “Securing the site complies with all legal requirements and largely exceeds them,” said an airport spokeswoman.

Nevertheless, there was also criticism of the security standards at German airports. For the German Police Union (DPolG), for example, the current approach is no longer sufficient. “It is difficult to convey that Christmas markets, for example, are secured with concrete barricades, and our airports, as high-security areas, are neglected by operators,” said DPolG Federal Vice President Heiko Teggatz.

“Incredibly naive”

Aviation expert Heinrich Großbongardt said in “Spiegel”: “Hamburg airport is not safe – and neither are other airports in Germany.” Airports have been known as preferred targets for terrorists for decades. There are planes on the aprons with tens of thousands of liters of kerosene in their stomachs and hundreds of passengers on board.” Großbongardt therefore described the airport operators and authorities as “incredibly naive.”

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