Traffic at Hamburg Airport in northern Germany was disrupted on Saturday evening due to a major police operation in connection with the alleged kidnapping of a child as part of a custody dispute, a police source said.
At around 8pm local time (7pm GMT), a gunman drove his car through an airport gate onto the tarmac, fired twice into the air and threw two lit bottles from the cabin, a police spokesman said.
According to police, at least two people, including a child, were in the vehicle.
The driver’s wife had previously informed the police about the abduction of their child, he added.
In the evening, the police said they assumed that a “dispute over custody of a child was the origin of this action.”
“We have a large contingent of emergency services on site. “We are currently in favor of a static hostage situation,” the Hamburg police announced on their X account (formerly Twitter).
+++UPDATE+++
Due to a police measure on the apron at Hamburg Airport, there will be no more take-offs and landings today, November 4th. All passengers must be transported if flying direct to the airline. pic.twitter.com/qGPe9OYmI0— Hamburg Airport 🕊 (@HamburgAirport) November 4, 2023
“We are in the process of evacuating all aircraft at Hamburg Airport that still have passengers on them. “The terminals have already been evacuated,” police added early Saturday.
Psychologists and agents specializing in negotiation were at the scene, police said, adding that they had been in contact with the person in the vehicle.
At the same time, the airport published a notice on its website saying that no landing or take-off was possible due to police intervention, again without providing further details.