Vilnius Airport closed for 11 hours due to balloons
Vilnius Airport airspace was closed for nearly 11 hours. According to an official statement from the airport administration, the cause was balloons flying towards it from the direction of Belarus.
According to official data, the balloons were spotted on Sunday evening. As a result, the airspace above the airport was closed at 18:09. Initially, flights were suspended until 21:00, but it was soon announced that the restrictions would be extended until 23:00, and then for several more hours. Consequently, the operations of the air gateway were paralysed for nearly 11 hours — the lifting of restrictions was announced at 5:00.
According to information from the Lithuanian Airports administration, Vilnius air gateway is now operating normally, however, the 11-hour hiatus could not but affect the schedule of departures and arrivals. The exact number of flights affected by the incident has not yet been specified, but passengers were warned about possible delays and cancellations, the Lithuanian outlet LRT reported.
The head of the National Crisis Management Centre (NCMC), Vilmantas Vitkauskas, described the situation with balloons on the border as the «height of cynicism». According to him, a similar situation was observed the previous day — launches of balloons by smugglers took place from Friday evening until 6:30 on Saturday morning — flights at Vilnius airport were suspended for eight hours.
As previously reported by BNS, the Lithuanian Airports administration (LTOU) has applied to the country’s General Prosecutor’s Office requesting a pre-trial investigation be initiated in relation to the threat to national security which, in their view, is posed by the contraband balloons on the border with Belarus.
Previously, Telegraf.news reported that last week, the official representative of the Lithuanian State Border Guard Service, Giedrius Mišutis, named the country from which the majority of illegal cigarettes, detected by local border guards this year, originate. It turned out that the primary source of contraband cigarettes for Lithuania was not Belarus at all.
В Литве назвали страну, откуда больше всего контрабанды сигарет. И это не Беларусь