The security alert level at a NATO air base in the German town of Geilenkirchen remains at the second-highest level, after it was raised on Thursday following intelligence reports of a possible threat.
Staff who are not currently needed at the site and were sent home as a precaution on Friday have not been sent back, air base spokesman Christian Breit said. “The site is largely empty,” he said. Flight operations were continuing as planned and were uninterrupted on Thursday, the spokesman said. “AWACS aircraft are continuing to take off and land,” he said, adding that the airport near Aachen has two to three AWACS flights a day from Monday to Friday, with no flights on weekends.
Brett said the background to raising the warning level was intelligence information indicating a potential threat, without providing any additional information about the circumstances that led to raising the warning level, but he denied speculation about drones flying over the airport, saying, “This is ridiculous.”
Brett noted that unauthorized aircraft are prohibited from flying over the airbase, explaining that drones are intercepted from the base before they fly over the no-fly zones. He noted that, as with any airport, the airspace is of course closely monitored. “Nothing has flown here,” he said. In NATO terms, the current security level, known as Charlie, means that there is an incident or evidence that indicates a high likelihood of a terrorist act against the coalition.
The spokesman said that the “Charlie” alert level is unusual, noting that it has not happened in Geilenkirchen for years, stressing on the other hand that there is no reason to worry, noting that the intelligence information is abundant and most of the time nothing happens after it is received, but precautionary measures must still be taken.
The airport originally employed about 1,600 people, Brett said, but that number was now much lower due to the holiday period. About half the staff were now at home due to the alert level, but many were working from home. NATO has deployed its AWACS airborne early warning system to Geilenkirchen.
14 refurbished Boeing 707 aircraft are monitoring the airspace to detect potential threats early and ensure early warning for the alliance.
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