Security at Hamburg Airport tightened after hostage-taking

Air traffic - Security at Hamburg Airport tightened after hostage-taking

Following the hostage-taking at Hamburg Airport, security precautions at the airport are being tightened - and standards are also to be reviewed throughout Germany. Among other things, massive folding gates and hydraulically retractable bollards at the four active entrances and exits are to prevent unauthorized access to the airfield in Hamburg in future, said airport boss Michael Eggenschwiler on Thursday at a joint hearing of the Interior and Economics Committees of the Hamburg Parliament.

The otherwise unused emergency gates would also be additionally reinforced with concrete bollards connected by steel cables. In total, a "seven-figure euro amount" is to be invested.

On November 4, a 35-year-old man in a rental car broke through a barrier consisting of three barriers at the airport and raced onto the airfield. His four-year-old daughter was also in the car.

According to Matthias Tresp, head of the Hamburg security police, the man fired three shots from a pistol, threw two incendiary devices and threatened with a bomb, which later turned out to be a dummy. "Any access option becomes difficult when you're talking about bombs," he said.

The perpetrator then communicated "very much and very openly" with the police via cell phone. "Our primary goal was to calm the situation through constant negotiations," said the incident commander, describing the situation. After 19 hours of negotiations, the concept worked. "At 2.30 p.m., we were finally able to get him to get out of the car with his daughter."

The background to the incident was a custody dispute: The man wanted to force his daughter, who had previously been abducted from his ex-wife's apartment in Stade (Lower Saxony), to leave for Turkey. He has been in custody since the crime.

In addition to Eggenschwiler and Tresp, state councillors Andreas Rieckhof from the economic authority responsible for the airport and Thomas Schuster, who represented Andy Grote (SPD), Senator of the Interior, who was ill with coronavirus, as well as Hamburg's new police commissioner Falk Schnabel also gave evidence to the committee. Everyone was happy that the hostage-taking was ended without bloodshed.

"It is thanks to the efforts of all the forces involved that this girl could be rescued unharmed," said Rieckhof. The airport is "legally obliged to protect itself against unauthorized intrusion". Compliance was monitored by the National Quality Control Center - most recently at the end of August/beginning of September - "exactly four weeks before the breakthrough took place", he said. "Although the security measures were complied with, fully, it was still possible."

"Alerting, communication and emergency plans worked well," summarized Eggenschwiler. The airport was evacuated immediately and after the hostage-taking ended, flight operations were resumed within three hours. However, the incident had made it clear that security standards had to be constantly reassessed, he said.

According to Schuster, following the incident, the Conference of Interior Ministers called on the federal government to examine nationwide regulations to prevent intrusions into airport premises in future and requested that the legal situation be amended. "The aim is to obtain a guideline from the federal government as to what level of security should be aimed for in future," said Rieckhof.

Representatives of the opposition reminded the committee that this was not the first time that unauthorized persons had been able to gain access to the airfield: Ten members of the Last Generation group had cut open the fence on July 13 and ridden bicycles towards the airfield. According to the federal police, four of them had stuck to the access roads near the runways. Air traffic also had to be suspended for hours at that time.

Police statement dated 4.11.23 Agenda of the Committee on Internal Affairs