A catastrophe with multiple casualties was possibly only narrowly averted by the discovery of a drone carrying explosives at Leipzig airport, German officials said, as they examined whether a foreign state could be behind the plot.
One of the Ukrainian aircrafts next to where the bomb drone was found was loaded with military ammunition, according to a classified police report quoted by the public broadcasters WDR and NDR and the Süddeutsche newspaper.
The interior minister, Alexander Dobrindt, who said on Wednesday Germany faced a “new level of danger”, said only an apparently “ripped” detonator had prevented the device going off near Ukrainian cargo planes on the tarmac at the shipping and military hub.
The highly explosive cargo, with a tank filled with jet fuel, had apparently been transported from France to Leipzig shortly beforehand and was presumably intended for onward transport, the report said.
The airport is about ۱۲.۵ miles (۲۰km) from the centre of Leipzig, a city of more than ۶۰۰,۰۰۰ people. The facility hosts a major cargo processing centre that employs hundreds of people round-the-clock and is adjacent to two busy autobahn routes.
The Bild newspaper reported that the drone found near the Ukrainian plane had a handmade remote detonator that did not work, and investigators hoped it could offer clues as to its origin and the culprits.
Leipzig airport’s status as a Nato and German military logistics hub, as well as the the base for Ukraine’s Antonov Airlines in Europe, has directed suspicion toward Russia, which German and European authorities say has carried out repeated sabotage attacks.
The German government and authorities have stopped short of pointing the finger at Moscow for what marked a clear escalation of the threat level in Europe.
But Dobrindt said investigators were treating the incident as part of a “professional hybrid threat scenario” with a focus on “foreign powers” as likely perpetrators.
Roderich Kiesewetter, a member of the German parliament’s intelligence committee, blamed Russia directly. “I consider the threat to Germany posed by hybrid attacks orchestrated by Russia to be serious,” said Kiesewetter, a member of the co-ruling Christian Democrats.
“I also believe that the attempted drone attack at Leipzig airport was a targeted hybrid attack – in other words, an attempted act of terrorism – orchestrated by Russia.”
An airport staff member discovered the drone shortly before midnight on Tuesday, “hovering” near the ground between two Antonov Airlines An-۱۲۴ cargo airplanes, among the world’s biggest freighters.
Police said a drone defence sensor system at the airport, considered “critical infrastructure” by Germany, had not picked up the drone. They now believe based on security footage it had been on site for several hours before it was found.
Dobrindt told reporters that the drone seemed to have been modified to circumvent electronic detection. It was attached to a package of explosives roughly the size of a fist, according to the WDR-NDR-Süddeutsche report, and investigators said the substance inside was believed to be semtex, a powerful plastic explosive.
The discovery of the drone led the airport to suspend air traffic, forcing a DHL cargo plane from Marseille on its approach to take off again. It then collided with what is believed to have been a second drone.
The media report said that plane had also been carrying unspecified “dangerous goods” before it made an emergency landing in Hanover, about ۱۵۵ miles north-west, with minor damage.
Bild said the drone that hit the DHL plane had a camera used to film the attack.
Air traffic had been diverted on Wednesday from the airport’s southern runway but was back to normal on Thursday with no additional security measures reported.
Ukraine has been using Leipzig airport as an alternate location for the transport of military goods since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February ۲۰۲۲, according to official records.
German defence ministry officials said its armed forces were not conducting military transport operations at the airport at the time of the incident.
Leipzig airport has previously been targeted. A firebomb, posted via DHL, exploded at the facility in July ۲۰۲۴ while a second was sent to the UK and caught fire at a warehouse in Birmingham. Two similar packages were also found in Poland.
A subsequent pan-European investigation identified ۲۲ suspects in Lithuania and Poland who were suspected of having been employed by Russian intelligence.
Testimony this week at a trial in Lithuania of five people suspected of mailing the incendiary devices showed how narrowly the plane from Leipzig avoided being set on fire in mid-flight.
A DHL company representative told the court the parcel ignited on the ground at its logistics centre at Leipzig airport shortly before loading, rather than during the flight, because the plane was delayed.
