Munich airport was forced to close on Thursday evening after several drones were spotted hovering over the travel hub.
At least 20 flights were grounded as a result, German news outlet Bild reported.
The travel disruption could affect thousands of passengers as the German city has been welcoming revellers from around the globe for its world famous Oktoberfest beer festival.
Federal police confirmed the drone sightings, but said no information on the type and size of the devices could be provided.
According to local reports, the first drones were spotted at around 9.30pm on Thursday and reported to police.
Officers investigated the area but were unable to identify either of the drones or their owners.
An hour later, at around 10.30pm, the airport’s both runways were closed, preventing aircraft from taking off or landing.
Officials have not been able to determine who is behind the drone flights, while ground officers and police helicopters were deployed to the site.
Munich Airport was closed on Thursday evening after a drone sighting. The closure left 20 flights affected
The airport closure comes as revellers flock to Munich for its world famous Oktoberfest Beer Festival
Neither the drones or suspects have been identified at the time of writing.
Officials were unable to say whether regular operations at the airport will resume on Friday morning.
The drone sightings come after German authorities said Wednesday that they are investigating claims that unidentified drones may have spied on critical infrastructure in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein.
Multiple drones were spotted on September 25 over a power plant in the state capital of Kiel, as well as near a university hospital and a shipyard in the port city, according to a German news outlet Der Spiegel.
Regional Interior Minister Sabine Sütterlin-Waack told a committee of the state parliament on Wednesday that flying objects of ‘various types and sizes’ had been spotted.
Chief Public Prosecutor Stephanie Gropp said an investigation was underway.
The sightings come as many NATO countries, including Germany, are on high alert following a series of recent incidents.
It also comes after Denmark’s defence ministry said on Sunday that it had again observed drones at several of its armed forces’ locations, a day after the NATO alliance announced that it would enhance its vigilance in the Baltic Sea region.
Meanwhile, Germany’s northernmost state has been strengthening its drone defenses in coordination with other states in northern Germany, Sütterlin-Waack was cited by the dpa news agency as saying.
Authorities in Germany have urged caution about reading too much into drone sightings.
‘I will explicitly say that not every drone controlled by foreign powers is automatically a threat either,’ Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said Monday.
Some incidents could be seen as ‘provocation’ – as was the case in the sightings last week in Schleswig-Holstein, he said.
Dobrindt said authorities must ‘respond appropriately’ to the respective threat.
Der Spiegel said two small drones had been seen over the Kiel factory premises of TKMS, a maritime defense technologies provider, late last Thursday.
Top European leaders met in Copenhagen on Wednesday for talks on the continent’s security.
Before the talks, Danish PM Frederiksen warned that Europe is ‘in the most difficult and dangerous situation since the Second World War’.
Leaders also discussed plans to bolster the bloc’s eastern defences as they accused Russia of brazen violations of the region’s airspace with recent incursions by drones over Poland and fighter jets over Estonia.
‘Russia will continue and we have to be ready, we have to strengthen our preparedness,’ Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said as he arrived, voicing his support for a drone wall – a network of sensors and weapons to detect, track and neutralise intruding unmanned aircraft.
‘It is the pattern we need to observe, and in my view that pattern is essentially a hybrid war against Europe, and that is what we need to respond to,’ Frederiksen told reporters on Wednesday.
The meeting is also the first opportunity for leaders of the EU’s 27 countries to debate a proposal to use Russian assets frozen in Europe to fund a major loan to Ukraine.
A severely damaged house in the village of Wyryki in eastern Poland, where one of the Russian drones that breached Polish airspace collided with the building
A soldier of the German armed forces demonstrates a HP 47 drone jammer during the defence exercise “Red Storm Bravo” in which civilian and military coordination is trained and led by German army Bundeswehr in Hamburg, Germany, September 26, 2025
As they arrived at the summit, some leaders voiced strong support for the idea while others were more cautious.
The Kremlin condemned the proposal on Wednesday as ‘pure theft’.
Russia has denied responsibility for the drones over Denmark, disputed that its fighter jets entered Estonian airspace, and said it did not intend to send drones into Poland.
But the incidents prompted European leaders to step up calls to bolster the continent’s defences and boost support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion. US President Donald Trump has demanded the EU take more responsibility on both fronts.
The drones that flew over Denmark ‘show we need pre-alert systems, and we need to cooperate,’ France’s Macron said in Copenhagen.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen raised the idea of a drone wall last month, after some 20 Russian drones entered Polish airspace, although officials say it had been being worked on before then.
‘What I see overall … is a pattern. And this pattern is coming from Russia,’ von der Leyen said on Wednesday.
‘Russia tries to test us. But Russia also tries to sow division and anxiety in our societies. We will not let this happen,’ she said.
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