Defense took action on Friday evening in an attempt to shoot down drones at the Volkel military air base. Air force personnel deployed weapons from the ground, but failed to bring the drones down, the Ministry of Defense reported in a statement on Saturday afternoon. press release.
Guards at the base reported the drones between 7 and 9 p.m. A spokesperson for the Royal Military Police, which is investigating the case together with the police, told the ANP news agency that shots were fired at the drones. The flying objects left and were not found.
Defense itself does not want to elaborate on which resources have been deployed for “security reasons”. A spokesperson for the ministry does say that this is the first time that this has been done against drones in the Netherlands.
It is clear that it was not just a single drone. “Our current picture is that five drones were initially spotted, later there were ten,” outgoing Minister of Defense Ruben Brekelmans told the newspaper. A.D. It is not yet clear what type of drones were involved and why they flew above the base.
Infrastructure
Although drone reports are not new, drones have recently been spotted around sensitive infrastructure in several European countries. In Belgium they were spotted several times at military bases, the airports of Brussels-Zaventem and Liège were even temporarily closed.
Additional safety measures have now been taken in Belgium. For example, the country has purchased an anti-drone system in Latvia and is receiving support from the Royal Air Force of the British Army.
Drones were also spotted in the Netherlands. On Monday evening, several drones flew above the port area of Terneuzen. Drones were previously seen at the NATO command center in Brunssum and Maastricht Aachen Airport and Schiphol airports. The authorities generally release little further information about this.
Also read
Drones are popping up everywhere in European airspace. But how can EU countries arm themselves against it?
NEW: Give this item as a gift
As an NRC subscriber you can subscribe every month 10 articles give as a gift to someone without an NRC subscription. The recipient can read the article directly, without a paywall.