Drone defense: Are Germany’s airports protected from drones?

After repeated drone sightings at airports in Denmark and Norway, concerns are also growing before comparable incidents in Germany. In the past few days, drone disabilities have caused a sensation at the airport in Copenhagen and Oslo. A connection with provocations from Russia was not excluded by the Danish authorities. Such events have not yet become known in Germany, but the unmanned flight objects also employ airports and authorities in this country.

Is there a changed security situation at German airports?

No – at least not because of military drones. Nevertheless, however, disorders with drones at the airports have increased significantly in Germany, according to German air traffic control. The federal police speaks of an “increasing threat to passenger air traffic”.

In the airline figures, this means that 144 disabilities by drones have already been registered by the end of August, as the company reported, which belongs to the federal government 100 percent. In the previous year it was 113 in the same period, only 99 in 2023.

At the Frankfurt am Main Airport, the largest German hub alone, 35 disabilities have already been counted this year. Anyone who steered the drones does not emerge from the report. In many cases, hobby pilots are likely to be the cause. In Cologne/Bonn there were 12, in Düsseldorf 9 and in Hamburg, Stuttgart and Munich 6th at the Berlin capital airport, as in Dresden, there were 5 incidents.

According to the managing director of the anti-drone specialist Aaronia GmbH, Stephan Kraschhansky, there are even much more drones about Germany and other western states. “The drones about Danish airports, in Oslo or over Poland were only the tip of an iceberg,” said Krashansky, the dpa. The technical equipment is often missing to notice the remote -controlled air devices at all.

What do the drone flights want to achieve?

The obvious goal of these flights is to explain the vulnerable places of the western infrastructure precisely, Kraschhansky emphasized. This included the railway signal boxes, the tensioners of the energy suppliers, refineries, airports, but also barracks and military training areas. “Everything that has to do with a functioning life.”

Anyone who is behind these numerous drone missions cannot be said with 100 % security. Although everything in Copenhagen indicates Russia, it is also conceivable that criminal free rescues will bring material together to blackmail companies, Kraschhansky said. In any case, the drones would mostly not be started in Russia, but were controlled by strangers on a western soil.

How is the legal situation in Germany?

According to the German air traffic control, drone flights are usually reported by pilots or landing aircraft, but also observed from the tower of the respective airport. If necessary, entrances and departures would have to be stopped as a precaution. As a rule, this leads to major problems in international air traffic. Drone flights are prohibited within a radius of 1.5 kilometers for airports and can be punished with prison terms of up to ten years, according to the air traffic control.

In January, shortly before the Bundestag election, the Federal Cabinet at the time had initiated a tightening of the Air Security Act. In the event of an impending particularly serious accident, the Bundeswehr should give an authority to ward off illegally flying drones. Due to the early election, the law has not yet been decided by the Bundestag – the incumbent government would have to start a new parliamentary attempt.

According to the previous legal situation, drones is generally legally possible, as the expert Verena Jackson from the University of the Bundeswehr in Munich emphasizes. However, this must be proportionate and also mountains considerable dangers – for example through falling debris or explosive cargo and has therefore hardly been considered so far. In principle, Germany is not poorly positioned in drone defense.

How are the airports currently protected?

The federal police are usually responsible for the defense of drone at airports, and in the rest of the country it is the state police. The German air traffic control (DFS), the airfield operator and the state air security authorities are also involved in the assessment at the commercial airports. The airports themselves must not assess whether a drone is controlled by a hobby pilot or whether it is a hybrid threat. From the Ministry of the Interior in Munich it was also said that in principle, a possible criminal liability was checked in every drone sighting.

In practice – this was also shown by the incidents in Copenhagen – but it is anything but easy to get drones from the sky. Tactical considerations could not be given more detailed information on the systems used, the federal police said. Electromagnetic impulses are possible, the disturbance of radio connections or physical influence on drones, for example by fishing nets.

The ADV airport association calls for a legally secured state financing of systems for drone detection and defense from politics. Protecting airports is a sovereign task and requires the latest technology and clear structures. The demand for technical equipment to combat drones is huge, said Kraschhansky. European countries are currently primarily supplied with systems that could discover and ward off civilian, self -made or military drones. Something is now being done in many places. The need to catch up is immense.