On Saturday, drones appeared not only to have been seen at Eindhoven Airport, but also above Volkel air base. State Secretary Tuinman said this on Sunday morning. He says that resources were deployed on Friday and Saturday to chase away the drones, both in Volkel and Eindhoven. And it is not yet clear who is behind the drones.
“Tonight was a bit late,” Tuinman said on Sunday morning at WNL op Zondag. “A number of drones actually flew over the fence in Volkel. They were chased away. The night before last in Volkel and yesterday in Volkel and Eindhoven.”
It was not yet known that drones had been seen again in Volkel on Saturday. A lot of attention was paid to Eindhoven Airport, where air traffic came to a standstill due to several drones. “We are on top of it and have an operational headquarters that is working on this day and night.”
Together with Minister Ruben Brekelmans (defence), he is busy with the drones. It is striking that Tuinman starts twice about rascals, whom he warns not to play a prank over the air base or airport ‘with a crate of beer’. “If you fly your drone over Volkel, you can go to jail for a while,” he says admonishingly.
Three scenarios are taken into account. “Everything is possible,” says Tuinman. “It may be that people do not know that they are not allowed to fly there, but also that it is due to criminal activity or that there are malicious parties.”
According to the State Secretary, it is not easy to determine which of the three was involved on Friday and Saturday. “And an airport is really very big. These were small drones, quadcopters. You can just buy them at the MediaMarkt.”
The defense has two methods to chase away the drones. “Soft kill and hard kill,” the State Secretary explains. With a soft kill, a drone can no longer communicate with the main station. A hard kill means that the drone is destroyed. Tuinman does not want to say which of the two methods were used at Volkel Air Base and Eindhoven Airport. But no remains were found and nothing was cleared.
“We have the resources and we are using them,” he says. “We have a clear mandate. In the past we were reluctant to act, so we didn’t do it anyway. But now we are also using them.”