2023-11-05 05:34:45
Hamburg Airport remains cordoned off over a large area due to a hostage situation. Individual morning flights have already been canceled, as the airport announced on Sunday night. Please monitor the flight status and contact the airline if necessary.
Large-scale traffic measures will continue to be necessary for the duration of the operation, as the police announced early in the morning. The airport cannot currently be reached. The S-Bahn does not go to the airport either.
An armed hostage-taker drove his car onto the apron of Hamburg Airport on Saturday evening. The entire airport was cleared and a large area was cordoned off. According to the police, the man had a four-year-old girl in his power; the background to the crime was probably a custody dispute, according to investigators. Several machines were evacuated.
According to the federal police, the armed man broke through a gate with his vehicle around 8 p.m. and drove onto the apron of the airport. The man had a gun and had already shot it twice into the air. He also threw two burning bottles out of the car, “a kind of Molotov cocktails,” said Thomas Gerbert, spokesman for the federal police.
The police say they are currently in good contact with the armed hostage-taker at Hamburg airport. “We have criminal psychologists on duty and we are currently speaking to the perpetrator. We are relying on a negotiated solution here,” said a police spokeswoman when asked early Sunday morning. The man, who is believed to be 35 years old, is being negotiated in Turkish.
The man is “facing” the investigators, the spokeswoman said. In addition, it is an “absolutely good sign” that he has been in contact with the emergency services for so long. “He wants to talk to us and we initially rate that as very positive.”
Wife spoke up
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.
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.
The passengers from the evacuated planes were taken to a nearby hotel. A total of 3,200 passengers were affected.
The police had no information that night that anyone was injured. This also applies to the perpetrator and the child.
The police no longer saw any acute danger from third parties. The plane on the apron under which the man had parked his car has now been cleared, a police spokesman told the German Press Agency on Saturday evening. In this respect, there is no longer any danger to uninvolved people.
An airport spokeswoman said that 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.
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.
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