Dramatic scenes at Hamburg Airport: According to the Federal Police, an armed man broke through a gate with a car around 8 p.m. on Saturday evening, drove onto the airport apron, shot into the air and threw “a type of Molotov cocktail” out of the car.
The man has his four-year-old daughter in the car – according to the police, there was apparently a custody dispute with the mother.
Thousands of people are affected
The airport will immediately be closed across a large area and the two terminals will be evacuated. All passengers on the planes will be removed from the planes and accommodated in a nearby airport hotel. A police spokesman said on Saturday evening that a total of 3,200 passengers were affected.
Flight operations suspended
Early Sunday, the airport announced that flight operations would be suspended indefinitely because of the hostage crisis. “There will be flight cancellations and delays throughout the day,” the airport said. The police ask that passengers do not travel to the airport for the time being.
Passengers describe fears
“Scary”, “creepy” – that’s how passengers who were taken out of their planes describe their impressions. A young woman who wanted to fly to Mallorca on Saturday evening told the German Press Agency: She saw a fire and at first thought it would be put out quickly.
Then she heard there was a shooting spree, and that was scary. In fact, the armed man had thrown incendiary bottles as he drove through the airport, which started fires on the apron.
Another woman who was also planning to fly to Mallorca said she was only allowed to take her handbag with her when the plane was evacuated. Everyone behaved calmly, but it was also scary because they didn’t know what was going on.
A passenger said that when she boarded she saw that there was a fire on the apron. Two minutes before the planned takeoff, the announcement came: “Please calmly leave the plane.” Then suddenly everyone was told to hurry up.
Contact with hostage taker
The Hamburg police negotiated with the man all night long. “We just got good contact with the perpetrator,” said a police spokeswoman late in the evening. Negotiations with the presumably 35-year-old man are taking place in Turkish.
“We are relying on a negotiated solution here,” she told the German Press Agency. She was positive about the fact that the talks had dragged on for so long: “That’s an absolutely good sign,” she emphasized. “He is facing us. He wants to talk to us and we initially rate that as very positive.” So far there has been no breakthrough.
Meanwhile, the police remain on site with a large contingent. A dpa reporter observed how new emergency vehicles continued to arrive at the airport throughout the night and early Sunday morning, and other emergency services drove away again. Police dogs are also on site. A drone circles over the airport.
Wife from Stade gets in touch
The man’s wife, who is said to have been in Stade near Hamburg, had previously reported to the state police about possible child abduction, as the federal police spokesman said.
“We are currently assuming that a custody dispute is the background to the operation,” tweeted the Hamburg police shortly before midnight. A police spokeswoman said in the morning that the mother was now in Hamburg near the airport.
It is assumed that the father “took the child away” from the mother and possibly put him in the car using force before driving to Hamburg and onto the airport tarmac, a police spokeswoman said when asked.
No injuries among the passengers
Shortly before midnight, the police had no information that anyone had been injured. This also applies to the perpetrator and the child he has with him. “We are not aware at the moment that anyone is injured,” said a spokeswoman when asked.
At that point, the police no longer saw any acute danger to third parties. The Turkish Airlines plane under which the man had parked his car was evacuated, a police spokesman told the German Press Agency. There is no longer any danger to uninvolved people.
All flights canceled
The airport spokeswoman said six take-offs and 21 landings would normally have been expected between the official closure of the airport at 8:24 p.m. and the end of operations at 11 p.m. A total of 286 flights with around 34,500 passengers were originally planned for Sunday.
Security incidents before
Hamburg airport had already been closed in October, but at that time because of a threat of attack on a plane from Tehran to Hamburg.
In July, climate activists from the group Last Generation shut down Hamburg airport for hours. Flight operations had to be stopped for several hours for safety reasons. Thousands of passengers, including many families with children, were affected. At that time there were calls for security to be strengthened.
