Belgium's Brussels Airport was forced to close twice on Tuesday evening due to drone sightings, while Luxembourg offered to take diverted flights and confirmed that no drones have been detected in its own airspace.

The first drone was spotted shortly before 8pm, prompting an immediate suspension of all take-offs and landings. Around 9pm, a second drone was seen near Liège Airport, leading to another temporary airspace closure.

Under Belgian aviation safety rules, if a drone is detected over an airport, airspace must remain closed for at least 30 minutes while further monitoring is carried out. If no further suspicious activity is observed, flights can resume. Operations in Brussels did briefly restart around 9.30pm, but a new alert at 9.45pm forced authorities to close the airspace once again.

Flights were diverted to Maastricht, where, according to Le Soir, drones were also sighted, adding that aircraft already in the air eventually landed in Charleroi.

By around 11.30pm, Belgian authorities lifted the alert and reopened Brussels airspace.

Luxembourg offered support

Responding to the situation, Luxairport CEO Alexander Flassak said that Luxembourg had offered Belgium assistance by making its airport capacity available in case flights needed to be diverted. One aircraft was initially scheduled to land in Luxembourg, but the diversion was cancelled once Brussels reopened after the first alert.

Luxair CEO Gilles Feith confirmed that the recent surge in drone sightings across European airspace has become a growing concern for airlines. The national carrier has had to cancel or delay several flights in recent weeks following drone incidents at Copenhagen and Berlin airports.

As of 9.30pm on Tuesday, no drones had been detected in Luxembourg's airspace, according to Flassak.