Have you ever dreamed of getting to a busy airport, only to have the whole show come to a stop due to enigmatic drones flying overhead? That’s what took place in Copenhagen, Oslo, and Stockholm, where massive, unidentified drones led to the temporary shutdown of Scandinavia’s busiest airports, disrupting journey plans for tens of thousands of travelers.
Late on Monday evening, Copenhagen Airport, Scandinavia’s largest, was closed for almost four hours after police saw two to three large drones hovering over the region. Flights were suspended, arrivals rerouted, and a large police cordon surrounded the airport. In the words of Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, “Big drones which hovered above Copenhagen airport for several hours and had it close down amounted to the ‘most serious attack on Danish critical infrastructure’ so far.”
The outage did not end there—Oslo Airport in Norway and Arlanda Airport just outside Stockholm also suffered similar outages, with flights being diverted to nearby cities and thousands of passengers stranded or delayed.
What made these events particularly disconcerting was the sophistication of the drones and the operators. Drones were described by the police as large, which could fly several kilometers, and operated with finesse—flipping switches on and off, flying from multiple angles, and hanging around for hours before they disappeared. Copenhagen Police’s Jens Jespersen said that the operator was not merely demonstrating, but perhaps even practicing more advanced maneuvers. Offices banned the use of drones from taking off and landing at any airport in the country, saying they were worried about the threat to passengers, planes, and fuel depots.
For passengers, the consequences were instant and far-reaching. Flights between European capitals—Copenhagen to London, Oslo to Amsterdam, Stockholm to Brussels—were canceled or delayed, leaving people stranded in airports in Berlin, Gothenburg, and Malmö, often with little information or assistance. As reported by Scandinavian Airlines Ireland, these drone sightings grounded more than twenty flights and impacted primary routes throughout Europe. The frustration and confusion were evident, with many passengers fighting to book different flights or secure accommodations.
Security issues rose rapidly, with officials not able to exclude foreign involvement. Both Denmark’s prime minister and NATO’s secretary-general said that Russian participation couldn’t be excluded, considering the latest trend of drone and fighter aircraft incursions into NATO airspace. The European Commission cautioned that these events constitute a larger pattern of ongoing contestation at Europe’s borders that is at risk of threatening critical infrastructure. Though the Kremlin dismissed any role in the attacks, tension was palpable.
Investigations are underway, with the police, military, and intelligence services in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden working together to identify the origin of the drones. Authorities are deliberating whether the drones were airborne from land or perhaps from vessels on the Baltic Sea, based on the strategic positioning of Copenhagen Airport on the Oresund Strait. The Swedish Defence Forces and Norway’s national intelligence service have both admitted taking part in the investigations.
These events have revealed an escalating weakness in aviation security. With increasingly sophisticated and affordable drone technology, airports—and the millions of travelers that depend on them—are presented with new threats that require more robust defense and more intelligent surveillance systems. In the meantime, passengers throughout Europe are left to gamble with the unknown, hoping that when next they take flight, the skies overhead will be free of any unwanted surprise.