Air traffic at Sweden’s Stockholm-Arlanda airport was shut down for two and a half hours in the early hours of Monday morning after four unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were spotted over its runways. On Monday night, at least one unidentified drone was again seen above the landing strips at the airport. The incursion has raised concerns about Russian interference in the new NATO country, though authorities are exercising caution in pointing fingers.
“We suspect it was a deliberate act, but I cannot answer what the purpose was,” police spokesman Daniel Wikdahl told state broadcaster SVT.
The Arlanda control tower reportedly spotted at least four drones of varying sizes over the airport in the early morning hours Monday, leading authorities to halt takeoffs and landings at 2 a.m. Aftonbladet reports that helicopters and vehicles on the ground were used to chase the drones.
Neither the Swedish aviation authority nor the airport operating company Swedavia had any information regarding the kind of UAVs. The airport opened again around 3:30 a.m. Five incoming flights were affected and redirected to other airports, one of them to Helsinki, Finland, where passengers had to spend the night.
Police in Uppsala—a university city 40 km from the airport—reported observing drones of a larger model flying above police premises Sunday evening. Private citizens also reported seeing drones over the central parts of Uppsala around 10 p.m.
A spokesman for the Swedish Defense Authority told SVT they were aware of the situation, but were not on site at the airport.
Infrastructure Minister Andreas Carlson (KD) did not want to speculate about the incident, or who might be behind it. “The investigation will have to reveal that, and the law enforcement authorities will handle it in their continued work. What I can state is that the airspace was closed for just over an hour, some flights were rerouted, and actions were taken according to existing procedures,” he said.
A string of Russian drone incursions into NATO member states has heightened tensions in recent months. Just before the alert at Stockholm’s airport, Romania scrambled two F-16 fighter planes to intercept a Russian drone that breached its airspace from Ukraine.
An OSINT analyst on X, specializing in the Baltic area, connected the drone violations to an ongoing special operations exercise involving the British RAF and Swedish Air Force.
She also reported Finnish navigational aids being under attack around the same time. Russia has previously been accused of jamming GPS signals in the Baltic Sea, likely from the small Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, located between Lithuania and Poland.
Air traffic is always stopped as a safety measure when an unidentified drone comes close to an airport, Swedavia said. A special permit is required to fly a drone near an airport, and any unauthorized flight may be a violation of aviation law.
The police have opened a preliminary investigation into violations of the Aviation Act and violations of the Security Act.
Arlanda, located between Stockholm and Uppsala, is the largest airport in Sweden and the third-largest airport in the Nordic countries. The airport is the major gateway to international air travel for large parts of Sweden.
