Suspected drone sightings have disrupted flights at airports across Belgium on Tuesday, with no flights departing or arriving at Brussels Airport – the country’s busiest.
Air traffic was suspended around 20:00 local time (19:00 GMT) after a drone sighting. An hour later it briefly reopened, before closing again shortly after.
Liege Airport was also affected and it was not clear when flights would resume. Local media also reported drone sightings at the Kleine-Brogel and Florennes military airbases, local media reported.
It is the latest in a string of suspected drone sightings causing disruption at European airports – including in Munich, Copenhagen and Oslo.
A statement on the Brussels Airport website on Tuesday evening read: “There are currently no departing or arriving flights at Brussels Airport due to drone sightings around the airport.”
A later statement said: “This disruption has led to delays and some flight cancellations and might still impact flight operations on Wednesday morning.”
Pictures taken inside the airport showed what appeared to be camp beds being readied for passengers.
Officials at Brussels’ second-largest airport, Charleroi, said air traffic was briefly halted there as a precaution too.
Local media reported flights had initially been diverted to Liege – before that also closed due to suspected drone sightings.
It added that flights had since been diverted to nearby airports – including Ostend and Charleroi in Belgium, and Eindhoven and Maastricht in the Netherlands.
Tuesday was the fourth night in a row that the Belgian authorities reported drone sightings over Kleine-Brogel, a major military base near the Dutch border.
Belgium’s defence minister, Theo Francken, said on Monday that an investigation was under way, calling it “a clear mission targeting Kleine Broge”.
Drones were also seen close to Ostend and Antwerp’s Deurne airports over the weekend, according to Belgian news site VRT.
