All flights in and out of the Hamburg Airport in Germany have been canceled till additional discover as the authorities responded Saturday evening to an armed man who drove his automobile onto the tarmac and parked close to a airplane.
The man fired not less than one shot into the air, Sandra Levgrün, a spokeswoman for the Hamburg Police Department, mentioned in an interview posted on social media. She mentioned that no accidents had been reported.
A number of hours into the standoff, a police spokesman, Thilo Marxsen, mentioned officers on the bottom have been looking for a Turkish translator to speak with the person. The police had earlier mentioned he was accompanied by a toddler passenger and that they believed the scenario involved a “custody dispute.”
Two small fires have been noticed on the tarmac early on, however the authorities have been nonetheless attempting to find out in the event that they have been set by the person.
Passengers aboard the airplane close to the automobile and different planes have been evacuated and brought to a close-by resort, the police mentioned.
Video posted on social media confirmed closely armed officers escorting a bunch of passengers throughout the tarmac to a bus.
The girl who posted the video, Alina Tuider, 32, mentioned her flight dwelling to Vienna was getting ready for takeoff simply after 8 p.m. when the airplane got here to a halt.
“We saw armed police running across the field next to our plane,” Ms. Tuider mentioned in a cellphone interview, including that her flight had by then been grounded for about an hour. “So we knew there was something going on.”
At one level, she thought she heard a gunshot earlier than later studying in regards to the armed driver from the information on her cellphone.
Around midnight native time, police evacuated her airplane and she or he was later taken to a resort.
A spokeswoman for the airport, Katja Bromm, mentioned in an e mail that the police responded to the airport at 8:24 p.m. native time, prompting it to halt takeoffs and landings.
Twenty-seven flights have been then canceled, she added, affecting roughly 3,200 passengers.
Just earlier than 3 a.m. native time, the police said in an update that the airport remained closed as the standoff dragged on into its seventh hour.
Airport officials said morning flights had been canceled.
