Flights in and out of Copenhagen and Oslo were disrupted for hours on Monday night after drone sightings forced both airports to close, stranding thousands of passengers and triggering investigations in Denmark and Norway.
Copenhagen Airport shut down around 8:30 p.m. local time when two to three large drones were reported circling nearby. Airspace remained closed for nearly four hours, grounding departures, diverting at least 35 flights, and affecting some 20,000 travelers. Oslo’s main airport was also briefly closed after drones were detected overhead, with flights diverted until operations resumed early Tuesday morning.
Danish police said the drones appeared to have been flown by a “capable operator” intent on showing off, though there was no evidence of an attempt to cause harm. The country’s armed forces were placed on alert in response, underscoring the seriousness with which authorities view the growing threat of drones to aviation safety.
Jakob Hansen, deputy police inspector in Copenhagen, would not comment on speculation that the drones were of Russian origin. The following day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky alluded on social media to “Russia’s violation of NATO airspace in Copenhagen” last month, though he offered no evidence. Neither NATO nor the European Union has attributed responsibility.
Officials stressed that the incidents in Denmark and Norway did not appear to be linked. Still, the closures highlighted how even a handful of unidentified drones can paralyze major transport hubs in a region already on edge from the war in Ukraine and mounting concerns over hybrid threats.
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“Police are investigating the matter and we currently have no timeline for reopening,” Copenhagen Airport said in a statement Monday night, as passengers scrambled to rebook flights or faced long waits in terminals.
By early Tuesday, operations had resumed in both capitals, though delays and cancellations continued to ripple across schedules. Danish police said “a number of measures” would be rolled out as part of the inquiry but declined to provide details.
The sudden closures add to a series of recent disruptions in European airspace involving drones, incidents that security experts warn may become increasingly common as the technology grows more accessible — and more difficult to trace.