A A 35-year-old armed man burst into the house. in his car at Hamburg City Airport, Germany, with his Four-year-old daughter was taken hostage in which, according to investigators, a dispute arose over the custody of a minor, which led to the closure of the establishment and the cancellation of all flights.

The man entered the airport around 20:00 (local time) and made it to the runway, where he He fired his gun a couple of times and threw two burning bottles.“a type of Molotov cocktail” that was already extinguished by airport firefighters, a spokeswoman for the Federal Police told the newspaper. Blister.

Shortly before this, the girl’s mother contacted the police with a statement about the possible abduction of her daughter by her father in the midst of a dispute over guardianship of a minor.

Police warned that the airport would only be able to return to normal operations once the situation was resolved: “We assume that the background to the operation is custody conflict”, Hamburg police posted on their X (formerly Twitter) account shortly before midnight.

The spokesman said they are currently in “good contact with the offender” they are with. negotiations in Turkish and added that “here we believe in a negotiated solution.”

She appreciated the fact that the discussions had gone on for so long: “It’s an absolutely good sign.” “He is in front of us. He wants to talk to us, and we initially assess this very positively,” he emphasized and explained that a special group of police officers and police psychologists is at the scene.

For their part, Hamburg airport authorities reported that 286 flights from about 34,500 passengers They were scheduled for Sunday.

Passengers on the planes on the runway had to evacuated and transferred to a nearby hotel. At this time, police do not have information about any injuries, including the offender and the minor.

The airport’s website states that “due to Federal Police measures it is currently not possible to take off or land”, to which an airport spokesperson added that normally there would be six takeoffs Between the official closure of the airport at 20:24 and the end of operations at 23:00, 21 landings were expected. About 3,200 passengers were injured.