Drone sightings in Frankfurt am Main Airport (FRA) halted operations for more than an hour, forcing around 80 flights to be either canceled or diverted.
In the afternoon of March 2, 2020, the German aviation safety authority DFS suspended all take-off and landing clearances for an hour and a half in Germany’s first and Europe’s third busiest airport. The local police reported several unidentified drone sightings in the restricted airspace of the infrastructure. A helicopter was scrambled to try and locate the UAVs and their operator.
Am #Flughafen #Frankfurt wurde eine #Drohne gesichtet. Die DFS @dfs_de erteilt deshalb zurzeit keine Start- und Landeerlaubnisse. Landes- und #Bundespolizei sind gemeinsam zur Aufklärung und Gefahrenabwehr im Einsatz. Es kann zu Verzögerungen und Flugverspätungen kommen. pic.twitter.com/MHei75oStc
— Bundespolizei Flughafen Frankfurt am Main (@bpol_air_fra) March 2, 2020
As a consequence, about 13 flights were canceled and 70, mostly Lufthansa (LHAB) (LHA) , had to divert. More delays in operations and some cancellations are to be expected, explained Fraport, the operator of the airport.
Frankfurt am Main airport received nearly 70 million passengers in 2018 for some 512,000 take-offs and landings.
A growing threat at high altitude
Over the past ten years, the growing availability of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), commonly known as drones, has been a blessing for video enthusiasts and other tech addicts. But it has also created a headache for safety authorities, due to reckless operators.
In parallel to this flourishing market, a number of companies are offering technological solutions to address this problem. Take a look at some of them:
