skeyes confirms drone was visually spotted at Brussels Airport, triggering safety procedure

skeyes has confirmed that a drone was actually observed at Brussels Airport on Friday evening, September 11, contradicting the initial impression that the reported drone had not been detected.

The incident briefly disrupted operations at Brussels Airport between approximately 21:45 and 22:10 local time. According to Skeyes spokesperson Kurt Verwilligen, the drone was visually observed by both a supervisor air traffic controller in the control tower and members of Brussels Airport’s security team.

“It was indeed a drone that was observed,” Verwilligen told Belgian media. Because the sighting occurred in an area considered a risk to aircraft operations, Skeyes activated its Rogue Drone Procedure. The procedure was developed to determine how air traffic controllers and other stakeholders should respond when an unauthorised drone poses a potential threat to aircraft.

“When a drone enters a danger zone around a runway, we take that runway out of service and try to progressively shift operations to another runway,” Verwilligen explained. The objective is to avoid shutting down the entire airport unnecessarily.

As a result, departing aircraft were still able to operate, while arriving aircraft scheduled to land on runways 25R and 19 were temporarily placed in holding patterns. Several aircraft could be seen circling over the Brussels area while waiting for the situation to be resolved.

The first report was received at around 21:45. According to Brussels Airport, no aircraft were able to land between approximately 21:45 and 22:10. Three flights were ultimately diverted, with two sent to Ostend and one to Liège. Other flights were able to continue operating, although the full recovery of the traffic flow took longer than the period during which the runway restrictions were in place.