Lithuania on Wednesday issued an “air danger” warning urging residents to seek shelter and temporarily suspended operations at the capital’s airport amid fears that drones had entered the country’s airspace, as tensions between Russia and the Baltic states continue to escalate.
Lithuania’s Vilnius airport temporarily halted operations due to suspected balloons in its airspace, the airport said on Sunday, marking the latest in a series of flight disruptions in the Baltic nation.
A passenger aircraft from Polish carrier LOT veered off a taxiway at Lithuania's Vilnius airport after arriving from Warsaw on Wednesday, halting all traffic, the airport operator said.
Vilnius airport briefly halted night-time operations after balloons drifted towards its airspace late on Sunday, forcing several flights to divert. The airport announced on its website that it planned to reopen at 01.30 am local time.
Lithuania will keep its border crossings with Belarus closed for a month after balloons carrying cigarettes repeatedly disrupted air traffic at Vilnius Airport. Some exemptions will apply.
Flights were suspended from 10:30pm on Tuesday until 6:30am on Wednesday, following sightings of illicit balloon traffic in Lithuanian airspace, the National Crisis Management Centre (NCMC) said.
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