Belgium Drones - Brussels Airport Shutdown

Mick West

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Article:
Suspected drone sightings have disrupted flights at airports across Belgium on Tuesday, with no flights departing or arriving at Brussels Airport - the country's busiest.

Air traffic there was suspended around 20:00 local time (19:00 GMT) after a drone sighting. An hour later it briefly reopened, before closing again shortly after.

Liege Airport has also been affected and it is not clear when flights will resume. Local media also reported drone sightings at the Kleine-Brogel and Florennes military airbases, local media reports.

It is the latest in a string of suspected drone sightings causing disruption at European airports - including in Munich, Copenhagen and Oslo.


This comes a day after an order to shoot down drones over military bases

Article:
The Belgian army has issued orders to shoot down unknown drones spotted over the country's military bases, Belga News Agency reported on Nov. 3, citing Chief of Defense Frederik Vansina.

The announcement follows three consecutive nights of suspicious drone activity over military and civilian sites in the country, including the Kleine Brogel Air Base.

Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken said the incidents appear to be part of an espionage operation. He did not name a culprit but did not rule out a link to recent Russian intrusions in European airspace.


Drone incursions are real, but yet again we are being told there are drones without any actual evidence of drones. We know from past experience that in similar situations, the majority, if not all, of the reports are misidentifications.

Can anyone find video of the Belgian "drones"?
 
Three video here:
https://www.hln.be/nieuws/luchtruim...t-boven-kleine-brogel-en-florennes~a33d096f7/




Not much use without DTLDs, and rather ambiguous. All we have here is:
External Quote:
Around 7 p.m., citizens reported drones near the military air base in Kleine-Brogel.
Just before 8 a.m., there was also a report of a drone over Brussels Airport. Air traffic was halted for more than an hour for safety reasons. Since then, it has been halted again due to a new drone report.
 
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I found the Aldi shop in the last video.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/kFu7gTgJfBVY7Nrm8
2025-11-04_21-28-55.jpg


It could be this plane :)
https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?cu...azonaws.com/17922/Brussels/20251105_051111.js
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The top video is apparently near Kleine-Brogel Air Force Base.

There's a flat topped frustum shaped tower (possibly an old windmill?) in the 1st half and a probably phone mast in the second half, of what looks to be 2 videos edited together.

So a pretty hard geo challenge there.

Nothing in the videos seems different from normal air traffic.
 
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Might be a better track in FR24 oh its mil so no track

We've seen helicopters sent to find the drones, so could be the cause or could be a symptom..
 
I think it's a Helo
It seems to do a turn that a helo could

At the start of the video we see the red position light indicating the aircraft is showing us it's left side

1762342288513.png


Then later on we see green indicating we are now seeing the right side, the turn seems to happen around 21-22 seconds in, scrub the video back and forth to see what I mean.

1762342380775.png


The MLAT track is really spotty during the phases the aircraft performs such a turn though,
 
jarlrmai said:
I think it's a Helo
It seems to do a turn that a helo could

At the start of the video we see the red position light indicating the aircraft is showing us it's left side

View attachment 85540

Then later on we see green indicating we are now seeing the right side, the turn seems to happen around 21-22 seconds in, scrub the video back and forth to see what I mean.

View attachment 85541

The MLAT track is really spotty during the phases the aircraft performs such a turn though,
Click to expand...

Here's another video of that helicopter... the lights flash pattern is a close match for out 'drone'..


Source: https://youtu.be/qZbZLsX3nz8?t=20



On a side note - Helicopter has my favourite etymology of any word. Most people think it is made up of two words heli and copter, but its actually made up of helico and pter from the Greek words that mean spiral (as in helix) and wing (as in pterodactyl).
 
jarlrmai said:
It does seem to match in Sitrec, even tho the track is spotty, the turn and speed increase are a close match

https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?custom=https://sitrec.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/11433/brussels helo/20251105_120027.js

There's no helo model with lights right?
Click to expand...

I dont think that's quite right. The video seems to show a turn to the left, but the ADSB shows turns to the right. However, with it being MLAT the ADSB is particularly gappy, and the last part could be missing. Also, as this aircraft isn't on FlightRadar24 it might help explain why it created a drone report as someone who saw it could say "I checked FlightRadar24 and there wasn't any aircraft at the time, so it must be a drone!"
 
At the start of the video the aircraft is moving right to left and we see a red position light indicating we are seeing the left side of the aircraft, then it performs a turn and we see a green position light, this to me indicates a turn to the right...

I've always been bad at position lights tho, so I might be going mad..

1762344914814.png
 
@jarlrmai You're correct. Even better than that, if you watch the video closely we can initially see the red light on the horizontal stabilizer, and as it turns left the green light becomes visible as the aircraft is pointing directly towards the camera. But then quite quickly the red light disappears as the body of the helicopter obscures it.
 
flarkey said:
On a side note - Helicopter has my favourite etymology of any word. Most people think it is made up of two words heli and copter, but its actually made up of helico and pter from the Greek words that mean spiral (as in helix) and wing (as in pterodactyl).
Click to expand...
100% with you on that one. You'll find more examples if you look under the right lampposts - lepidopterist, for example (& hymenoptera, ...) - and, if you've got the kind of lens that recognises how p > f and t > th (e.g. 'pater' > 'father'), you might even see a connection between 'pter' and 'feather' (a satisfying deduction, but as far as I know still unattested).

And, as surely as "fly" is etymologically related to "flow", you'll even see the same ancient root in the Potomac. (But note that when you're reaching back that far in time you broaden scope to a fairly wide family tree: competition, appetite, symptom, ...).
 
I added the gate building in with the height difference, I really want to add the large A400 hangars but not sure which part of the obscured area they are in...
 
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