BERLIN, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- The German government is planning to increase the protection of German airports against drones, the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) reported on Monday.
The German air traffic control DFS was tasked by the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) to develop a plan for a "systematical detection of drones" at German airports, according to SZ.
The reason for developing the plan would be "the increasing number of drone sightings in the immediate vicinity of airports" as well as "recent events in which unmanned aerial vehicles have at times even brought traffic at airports to a standstill", a DFS spokesperson told SZ.
Air traffic at Germany's largest airport in Frankfurt was shut down several times this year after drones were sighted in the area of the airport's runways.
The DFS is set to examine if it would be possible to establish a restricted zone for drones of around 18 kilometers around German airports.
It would be able to monitor the airspace in these zones up to a height of 1,300 meters while German police forces would be responsible to "get drones out of the sky in critical situations" in these restricted areas, SZ reported.
According to German law, drones are prohibited to fly in a radius of 1.5 kilometers around airports. In addition, drones need to keep a safety clearance to hospitals, military and industrial facilities as well as prisons and power plants.
In 2018, about 158 obstructions of airplanes by drones were recorded by the DFS, marking an increase of 80 percent compared to the previous year. With 31, most of the obstructions were reported by pilots taking-off or landing at the airport in Frankfurt, followed by the airports Berlin Tegel and Munich.
The German association for unmanned aviation estimated in February that there were around 500,000 drones in Germany, of which around 19,000 were used commercially.
The plan commissioned by the German government is aiming to develop a technology for the "monitoring of drones" as well as their registration, reported SZ.
"Especially for the detection of uncooperative drones, a reliable technology must be procured", according to DFS.
The governmental plan is scheduled to be finished by DFS by the end of September.
