Hostage situation at Hamburg airport ends – child released, suspect arrested Major fire at Iranian addiction clinic leaves at least 32 dead – authorities investigate

What happened?

Dramatic scenes at Hamburg Airport: According to the federal police, around 8 p.m. on Saturday evening, an armed man broke through a gate with a car, drove onto the airport platform, shot into the air and threw “some kind of Molotov cocktail” out of the car. The man had his four-year-old daughter in the car – according to the police, this was probably preceded by a custody dispute with the mother.

The airport was immediately closed over a wide area and the two terminals were evacuated. All passengers on the planes were removed from the planes and housed in a nearby airport hotel. A police spokesman said on Saturday evening that a total of 3,200 passengers had been affected.

The hostage situation ended early on Sunday afternoon after more than 6 hours. Police said the man was arrested and his daughter was rescued. The suspect offered no resistance.

What impact does this have on air traffic?

The airport was largely closed due to the hostage situation. According to information from the airport on Sunday morning, 126 flights had already been canceled between the actual start of the flight at 6 a.m. and 11 a.m. Five arrivals were diverted to other airports. According to the airport, there were actually 286 flights scheduled for the entire day – 139 departures and 147 arrivals – with approximately 34,500 passengers. According to the airport, it is unclear how many of these can actually take place. On Saturday, 27 flights with approximately 3,200 passengers were affected.

What is known about the hostage taker?

Hamburg police negotiated with the man all night. Negotiations took place in Turkish about the suspected 35-year-old man, says police spokeswoman Sandra Levgrün. “We rely on a negotiated solution here,” she told the German news agency.

She was positive about the fact that the discussions dragged on for so long: “That is definitely a good sign,” she emphasizes. ‘He’s standing in front of us. He wants to talk to us and we initially judge that as very positive.” But even after more than twelve hours at the airport, there was no breakthrough. “We talk, we talk, we talk – and try to find a peaceful solution that everyone can live with,” Levgrün said on Sunday morning.

According to the police, it should be assumed that the perpetrator is armed. The police continue writing

How is the child doing?

The four-year-old girl who was held hostage in the car by the 35-year-old man appears to be physically unharmed. “We currently assume that the child is physically fine,” police spokeswoman Levgrün told dpa on Sunday morning. “But I don’t want to speculate about what it looks like mentally.” Even after the rescue, police announced that the child appeared unharmed.

What about the child’s mother?

The man’s wife, who had reportedly been in Stade near Hamburg, had previously reported possible child abduction to state police, the federal police spokesman said.

“We currently assume that a custody dispute is the background to the operation,” Hamburg police tweeted shortly before midnight. Levgrün said in the morning that the mother was now in Hamburg, near the airport.

It is believed the father ‘took’ the child away from the mother and possibly forcibly put him in the car before driving to Hamburg and onto the airport tarmac.

How did passengers experience the incident?

‘Scary’, ‘creepy’ – this is how passengers who were taken off their plane describe their impressions. A young woman who wanted to fly to Mallorca on Saturday evening told the German news agency: she saw a fire and at first thought it would be extinguished quickly. Then she heard there was a shooting, and it was scary. In fact, the armed man had thrown incendiary bottles while driving through the airport, causing a fire on the tarmac.

Another woman who was also planning to fly to Mallorca said she was not allowed to take her handbag with her until the plane was evacuated. Everyone was acting calm, 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 platform. Two minutes before the scheduled take-off came the announcement: “Please leave the plane calmly.” Then suddenly everyone was told to hurry up.

Have passengers been injured?

Probably not, shortly before midnight the police had no information that anyone had been injured. At that time, 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 spokesperson told dpa. There is no longer any danger to uninvolved people.

Hamburg, was there something there?

Hamburg airport was already closed in October, but at that time due to a threat of an attack on a plane from Tehran to Hamburg.

In July, climate activists from the group Last Generation closed Hamburg airport for hours. For safety reasons, flight operations had to be halted for several hours. Thousands of passengers were affected. At the time, there were calls for security to be strengthened.

Is there a security problem at the airport?

Despite the hostage takings, Hamburg Airport sees no failures in securing the area. “Securing the site meets and greatly exceeds all legal requirements,” an airport spokeswoman told dpa. Nevertheless, given the size of the airport – which is equivalent to almost 800 football fields – it cannot be ruled out that “highly criminal, unauthorized access to the security zone could take place with brute force.”

The spokeswoman emphasized: “To ensure the safety of air traffic, in addition to structural measures, alarm chains have also been set up that worked excellently.” Following unauthorized access, flight operations were immediately halted and the perpetrator was located. “Further information on safety-related details is not possible,” the spokeswoman explained.

According to the airport spokeswoman, the analysis of the incident involving the Last Generation activists – who had cut the outer fence and then climbed onto the asphalt on their bicycles – did not provide any new information. “There are no new requirements for critical infrastructure facilities yet,” the spokeswoman said. The airport is currently testing new camera and gate sensor systems. “In addition, patrolling around the fence by security forces has increased sustainably.”

(dabbing/jaw/sda/dpa)