Sunday, 5th of October, 2025

The Noise Is Apparent

Munich Airport has now been shut down twice in 48 hours due to drone sightings. Over 6500 passengers stranded. Dozens of flights cancelled or diverted. And European officials are still treating this as an unfortunate inconvenience rather than what it actually is: proof that the continent’s aviation infrastructure cannot account for its altered and molested environment.
This is no longer about isolated incidents. This is a system in crisis, throwing off noise so loud it should be deafening—yet somehow, the response remains muted debate about financing and legal frameworks.
When “Precautionary Measures” Mean Total Vulnerability
On Friday night, police confirmed “two simultaneous drone sightings by police patrols just before 11pm around the north and south runways” at Munich. The drones “immediately moved away, before they could be identified.”
Read that again: before they could be identified.
European airports cannot track these drones. Cannot identify their operators. Cannot prevent their incursions. The only tool available is the bluntest one possible: shut down all flight operations and hope the drones go away.
This is not security. This is surrender to an adversary who hasn’t even revealed themselves yet.

____________________________

The Naïve Assumption Endangering A Continent

In 1941, as fascist movements swept across Europe, George Orwell observed something that liberal democracies still struggle to understand today. Writing in “The Lion and the Unicorn,” he identified a fatal blind spot in progressive thinking—one that would prove as relevant in 2024 as it was in 1941.

“Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all ‘progressive’ thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security, and avoidance of pain,” Orwell wrote. This assumption, he warned, left democratic movements vulnerableThere’s a dangerous assumption embedded in Europe’s response to these incidents: that the war in Ukraine will remain isolated to Ukraine. That Russia’s drone warfare expertise, honed through thousands of attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, won’t be deployed against Western targets. That somehow NATO membership creates an invisible shield protecting European airports from the same tactics devastating Ukrainian cities.

This assumption is catastrophically wrong.

Germany is already reporting drone swarms over military and industrial sites. Denmark’s prime minister warned last week that Europe faces its “most dangerous situation since the Second World War.” Estonia and Poland have confirmed airspace violations. Romania has pointed directly at Russian involvement.

Yet the response remains aspirational: debates about a “drone wall” for Eastern borders, promises of legal changes to allow the military to shoot drones down “if necessary,” and German officials calling for “more financing and research.”

Research? The research is already complete. It’s happening in Ukraine every single night.

What “Noise” Actually Means

In disaster analysis, I use the term “noise” to describe unexpected results from designed systems—signals that the system cannot control its environment. Munich’s three shutdowns in 48 hours aren’t just noise. They’re a warning that European airports are operating on pure chance.

Every time an unidentified drone appears over a runway, airport operators are gambling:

Will it stay clear of aircraft?

Is it armed or simply observing?

Is this a probe to test response times?

Are coordinated attacks being planned based on what they’re learning?

They cannot answer any of these questions. They cannot track the drones. They cannot identify operators. They have no counter-measures deployed.

So they shut down operations, strand thousands of passengers, and hope the drones don’t come back. That’s not a security protocol—it’s an admission that the system has lost control.

The Arithmetic of Asymmetric Warfare

The economics are stark:

Cost to attacker: €500-1,000 per drone

Cost to defender: Millions in cancelled flights, diverted aircraft, stranded passengers

Potential cost of successful attack: Catastrophic

A consumer drone ingested into a jet engine during takeoff causes the same catastrophic failure as a bird strike—except this one is intentional, timed, and repeatable. Eastern Air Lines Flight 375 crashed after striking starlings in 1960, killing 62 people. US Airways Flight 1549’s “Miracle on the Hudson” demonstrated what happens when geese meet engines at takeoff power.

Now imagine that scenario, but the “geese” are deliberately positioned drones, launched in coordinated swarms across multiple airports simultaneously.

The attackers can probe defences, observe responses, map vulnerabilities, and strike when ready—all while European officials debate whether they should be allowed to shoot the drones down.

The Pattern We’ve Seen Before

Twenty-five years ago, the Concorde flew despite 70 tyre-related incidents because grounding a national monument was unthinkable. The Space Shuttle Challenger launched in freezing temperatures despite engineers’ warnings because NASA had “gotten away with it” 24 times before.

European airports are now in that same deadly territory: operating with known, demonstrated vulnerabilities while officials pursue bureaucratic solutions to tactical problems.

The warning signs aren’t subtle:

Munich: Two airport shutdowns in 48 hours

Denmark: Mysterious drone sightings during EU summit

Belgium: Overnight drone overflights of military bases

Poland: NATO fighters shooting down drones in Polish airspace

Estonia: Russian jets and drones violating airspace

Norway: Flight disruptions at Oslo airport

This isn’t just noise anymore. This is a coordinated campaign to probe and exploit European vulnerabilities.

What Must Happen Now

Europe’s summer tourism season begins in months. Oktoberfest just ended in Munich—imagine if coordinated drone attacks had shut down the airport during the festival’s peak weekend, when hundreds of thousands of visitors needed to travel.
Now extrapolate that scenario across Frankfurt, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Amsterdam Schiphol, and London Heathrow simultaneously. The economic damage would be catastrophic. The psychological impact—proof that European infrastructure is defenceless against cheap drones—would be worse.
The solution isn’t complicated:

1. Deploy counter-drone systems immediately at all major airports
   Detection, tracking, jamming, and kinetic interception capabilities must be operational within weeks, not years.
2. Implement daylight-only operations if necessary
   If airports cannot secure their airspace at night, restrict operations to daylight hours until defenses are in place.
3. Stop debating and start deploying
   The “drone wall” debate is a distraction. Every major European airport needs local counter-drone capabilities regardless of border defences.
4. Acknowledge the threat honestly
   
   

This isn’t about “research” or “financing discussions.” This is about immediate tactical deployment of existing counter-drone technology that’s already proven in Ukraine.

They Cannot Say They Weren’t Warned

German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt called the first Munich shutdown a “wake-up call.” But wake-up calls only work if you actually wake up.
Two shutdowns in 48 hours isn’t a wake-up call—it’s an alarm screaming while officials hit the snooze button and debate whether they’re legally allowed to turn it off.
The warning signs are undeniable. The vulnerability is demonstrated. The adversary—whoever they are—has proven they can shut down major European airports at will with equipment that costs less than a business-class ticket.
The only question is whether European officials will deploy defences before the inevitable disaster, or after—when they’re explaining to grieving families why they prioritised legal frameworks over lives.
History suggests catastrophe arrives faster than bureaucracy moves. Europe’s airports are in a race between threat and defence.
Right now, the threat is on the offence, and they’re a step ahead of us.

-Devin Savage