Drone found with explosive in German airport

A drone with explosives was found at Germany's Leipzig/Halle Airport and the device was defused, authorities said Wednesday, in an incident that the country's top security official said posed a "new quality of danger."

Both the runways at the major freight hub were closed and several flights, including one passenger plane, were diverted to other airports after a flying object was sighted nearby shortly before midnight Tuesday.

An anti-explosives robot was deployed to check an object near the south runway.

Regional police and prosecutors later said an airport employee discovered a drone near the airport's south runway with "an unknown explosive device," and the object was examined by police.

They removed its detonator.

That the drone was carrying explosives "is a new quality of danger," German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told reporters at the airport.

"Drone sightings, drone threats including in a hybrid context, are something we know from the past," he added. "A drone armed with explosives at an airport is a new threat scenario."