Late on Saturday, October 4, airspace over Vilnius International Airport was restricted, likely due to spotted balloons. The airport is closed for receiving and departing aircraft, and planes are being diverted to alternate airfields. This is reported by UNN with reference to LRT.lt and the service page Flightradar24.
Details
According to Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of the National Crisis Management Center (NKVC), flying objects were observed in the Baltoji Vokė area. He noted that disruptions to air traffic could last several hours.
A representative of LTOU stated that flights are currently being redirected to Kaunas and Riga airports.
One of the flights from Turkey was also diverted to Gdańsk Airport, according to data from Flightradar24.com.
For now, the airspace is closed, the situation changes every few minutes
Vilnius Airport is investigating the causes of the incident, but it is preliminarily believed that balloons may have been near the airfield.
One of the passengers told LRT.lt that his flight from Dublin to Vilnius was redirected to Riga. After landing in Latvia, the pilot announced that the plane would try to return to Vilnius as soon as it was allowed.
However, after 1 AM, the passenger was informed that a bus from Riga to Vilnius had been arranged for them.
This is not the first such incident at Vilnius Airport.
Recall
On August 20, air traffic at Vilnius Airport was temporarily suspended due to the detection of a drone. It was later found that the drone belonged to a private security company.
On September 3, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda's plane could not land in Vilnius. The reason was information about an unknown drone in the airspace, which led to a landing delay.
On September 27, Vilnius Airport suspended operations due to possible drone sightings, which led to a delay of a LOT Polish Airlines flight. This was the second such incident that day.
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