Hamburg Airport Closed as Armed Driver on Tarmac Remains in Police Standoff


The Hamburg Airport in Germany canceled all flights on Saturday night as the authorities responded to an armed man who drove his vehicle onto the tarmac and parked near a plane.

The man fired at least one shot into the air, Sandra Levgrün, a spokeswoman for the Hamburg Police Department, said in an interview posted on social media.

No injuries have been reported so far, Ms. Levgrün said.

The police said they were trying to contact the driver of the vehicle, who they said was accompanied by a child passenger, adding that they believed the situation concerned a “custody dispute.”

Two small fires were observed on the tarmac early on, but the authorities were still trying to determine if they were set by the man.

A police spokesman, Thilo Marxsen, said officers on the ground were seeking a Turkish translator to communicate with the man as the standoff stretched past midnight in Hamburg.

Passengers aboard the plane near the vehicle were evacuated, the police said, and passengers aboard other planes on the tarmac were still being evacuated.

Video posted on social media showed heavily armed officers escorting a group of passengers across the tarmac to a bus.

They were being evacuated to a nearby hotel, the police said.

A spokeswoman for the airport, Katja Bromm, said in an email that the police responded to the airport at 8:24 p.m. local time, prompting it to halt takeoffs and landings.

Twenty-seven flights have since been canceled, she added, affecting roughly 3,200 passengers.



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