Security risk prompts ban on Berlin private flights
Private flights over Berlin will be banned from next week, officials said today – a week after a small plane crashed on the lawn between Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s office and the parliament building.
From Monday, private flights in small planes will be barred from the air space over the centre of the German capital, the government said.
It included the government district where an ultralight biplane crashed and burned on July 22, killing its pilot.
Police suspect the 39-year-old German committed suicide and quickly ruled out terrorism. But politicians said it highlighted how easily terrorists could attack the heart of the German government from the air.
The measure “enables authorities to recognise early a terrorist attack on endangered objects in this area”, according to a statement issued jointly by Germany’s interior, defence and transport ministers.
Officials said the ban would cover the area inside a suburban railway line that rings the centre of the city and which should be easily visible to pilots. Small planes will also have to carry transponders so they can be tracked by air traffic controllers.
Police helicopters would be scrambled to intercept intruders.
Planes approaching the city’s Tegel and Tempelhof airports and flights by emergency services are exempted.
Police suspect the man who died on Friday last week deliberately crashed his ultralight biplane after killing his wife, whose body was found under a pile of coal in the cellar of their home in a Berlin suburb.
