Hamburg 'hostage situation' ends after 18 hours as suspect arrested

Police said a man drove through a barrier into the grounds of the airport on Saturday evening
Bill McLoughlin5 November 2023

The hostage situation at Hamburg airport has concluded with the suspect and his daughter police said on Sunday, ending an 18-hour ordeal that had closed northern Germany's busiest airport.

The suspect was arrested without resistance and the child appeared not to be injured, the police said on social media platform X.

The car with the 35-year-old man and 4-year-old child was then parked under a plane, a police spokesperson said.

"The hostage situation is over," the city's police force wrote on X, formerly know as Twitter, early on Sunday afternoon.

Getty Images

"The suspect got out of the car with his daughter. The man was arrested by the emergency services without resistance. The child appears to be unharmed," it added.

The airport, which was closed on Saturday night, said 286 flights with around 34,500 passengers had been scheduled on Sunday. There was no immediate announcement on its reopening.

Police said the child's mother had told them the father had been in contact with her.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Sign up you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy notice .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in