COPENHAGEN: Airports in Copenhagen and Oslo reopened on Tuesday, police said, hours after unidentified drones in their airspace caused dozens of flights to be diverted or cancelled, disrupting travel for thousands of passengers.

In the Danish capital Copenhagen, police said several large drones seen over the airport for several hours late on Monday eventually flew away on their own.

“The drones have disappeared and the airport is open again,” Deputy Police Inspector Jakob Hansen told reporters.

Hansen said police were cooperating with the Danish military and intelligence service to find out where the drones had come from.

He said police were also working with colleagues in Oslo after drone sightings in the Norwegian capital also caused the airport to close for several hours.

“We had two different drone sightings,” Oslo airport spokeswoman Monica Fasting told AFP.

“We reopened the airport around 3:15am,” she said. Flights were diverted to nearby destinations during the closures, and officials at both airports said they expected some delays and disruptions to continue on Tuesday.

The incidents came after the governments of Poland, Estonia and Romania accused Russia of violating their airspace this month, allegations that Moscow has brushed off.

Asked whether the drones above Copenhagen airport could have come from Russia, Hansen, the deputy police inspector, said: “We don’t know at this point.”

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said the large drones that flew over Copenhagen airport constituted the “most serious attack on Danish critical infrastructure”.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2025