Around 850 people took part in a five-hour drill at Berlin Brandenburg Airport testing how the operator, police and emergency services handle parallel incidents.
Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) and the Brandenburg state police staged a joint emergency exercise on 14 October 2026, rehearsing their response to a violent demonstration during a fictitious state visit.
The drill ran from 10am to 3pm. According to airport operator Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg GmbH, passengers and the public were never at risk and airport operations were not affected.
In the scenario, demonstrators near the airport tried to disrupt the arrival of a state guest. The situation escalated in several stages, with fires, a sit-in, clashes that left people injured and a breach in the fence to the airport’s aviation security area.
Coordinating responses to parallel incidents
The exercise tested how the airport operator, police, fire brigade, rescue services and other agencies work together under realistic conditions. The focus was on coordinating emergency forces, handling several incidents at the same time and protecting critical airport infrastructure.
István Szabó, Managing Director Operations at Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg GmbH, said: “The safety of passengers, employees and guests is our top priority. With today’s emergency drill, we are working with our partners to check whether our processes, communication channels and decision-making structures work even in complex and dynamic situations. Such exercises are an important component in being prepared in the best possible way for extraordinary events.”
Around 350 emergency personnel took part, along with 300 extras and 200 other participants such as exercise controllers, referees and observers. The Brandenburg police brought in riot police, the criminal investigation department, an aftercare team and communication units, among others.
Police Vice President Jan Müller said: “Such a full-scale exercise is important in order to test the interaction of the forces involved under realistic conditions and to gain valuable insights for emergencies. […] The value of such an exercise is to identify weak points, critically question processes and draw the right conclusions for future operational situations. The knowledge gained helps us to further optimise our processes and to be prepared in the best possible way for possible operational situations.”
The airport company and the police will now evaluate the results together. Any areas for improvement will feed into the further development of existing deployment and communication processes.
Exercises on this scale are mandatory for commercial airports at least every two years under International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) requirements. They are used to review and develop emergency and crisis management processes.
No comments yet