Munich Airport Halts Flight Operations After Drone Sightings, Nearly 3000 Passengers Stranded

Munich Airport in southern Germany was forced to shut down temporarily on Thursday night following multiple drone sightings, making it the latest European aviation hub to be disrupted by unexplained aerial activity.

The airport confirmed in a statement that 17 flights were grounded shortly after 10 p.m. local time, leaving nearly 3,000 passengers affected. A further 15 inbound flights were diverted to Stuttgart, Nuremberg and Frankfurt, as well as to Vienna in neighbouring Austria.

“Some flights are still waiting to take off, others have been cancelled. Everything is under control and the airport is due to reopen at 5 a.m.," a call handler told CNN in the early hours of Friday.