DroneLedger

Airport disruption

Suspected drone activity suspends Dubai airport departures

Dubai (دبي) · 15 Feb 2019 · event date · approximate location

Dubai International Airport suspended departures on 15 February 2019 after suspected drone activity. The operator gave a suspension window of 10:13–10:45 UAE local time. [1][2]

Drone presence is reported. The consequences are established. The operator is not established.

Drone presenceReported[1][2]
ImpactConfirmed[1][2]
AttributionNot established

DroneLedger editorial team, publisher and editor responsible for this project.

AI-assisted editorial source review. This label records the editorial workflow, not a personal check of every source or sentence. Method and corrections

2 source families · a count of sources is not a verification score

AI-assisted editorial source review · 17 Oct 2026 · Dossier updated 17 Oct 2026

You are viewing revision 2 as published on 17 Oct 2026. The dossier text, evidence states, claims and sources of this revision are fixed; catalogue context such as cost estimates is not shown here. View the current version

What do we know now?

Dubai International Airport suspended departures on 15 February 2019 after suspected drone activity. The operator gave a suspension window of 10:13–10:45 UAE local time.

Facts at a glance
Drone type
  • No named drone type is recorded in this dossier.
Effects
  • According to The National, citing Dubai Airports, The operator specifically confirmed a departure suspension
  • According to The National, citing Flightradar24, A separate tracker indication of delay was also reported
Who reported what
  • Euronews: Assessment of drone involvement
  • The National: Assessment of drone involvement; reported outcome
Source families
  • 2 source families are recorded; republication is not independent confirmation

Further details are not known from the cited sources.

Timeline

Three clocks, one reading line

Shared calendar-day axis, from left to right. Bars mark days or reporting windows, not durations. Publication and revision clocks are not event clocks. Missing clocks remain unknown; the table gives all available precision and source links. The plot follows recorded calendar dates; time zones may differ. It establishes neither within-day order nor causality.

Three clocks, one reading line
TrackRecorded date / time
1 · Event
  • · Calendar day; time unknown
2 · Source publication
3 · Dossier revisions

What remains uncertain?

  • Was a drone established? A published investigation or identification could resolve this.
  • Who operated it, and why? An attributed investigation finding is missing.
Check the evidence
Source passage
  • Dubai Airports via Reuters · “due to suspected drone activity” Euronews
  • Dubai Airports via The National · “flight departures from Dubai International were suspended” The National
  • Flightradar24 via The National · “Flightradar24 reporting a 52-minute average delay” The National

Claims and evidence

2 sources · 2 original statements

Sources that repeat the same original statement count once: a number of articles is not a number of independent confirmations.

ClaimOriginal sourceAssessment
Drone

The airport spokesperson attributed the suspension to suspected drone activity.

[1]
Source passage
“due to suspected drone activity”

Passage checked word for word against the source on 16 Oct 2026.

Dubai Airports via Reuters via Reuters / EuronewsSupports the report

Literal short passage read on the public article; shared official origins distinguished from separate reporting.

Impact

The operator specifically confirmed a departure suspension.

[2]
Source passage
“flight departures from Dubai International were suspended”

Passage checked word for word against the source on 16 Oct 2026.

Dubai Airports via The National via The NationalSupports the report

Literal short passage read on the public article; shared official origins distinguished from separate reporting.

Impact

The National also reports a separate tracker indication of delay.

[2]
Source passage
“Flightradar24 reporting a 52-minute average delay”

Passage checked word for word against the source on 16 Oct 2026.

Flightradar24 via The National via The NationalSupports the report

Literal short passage read on the public article; shared official origins distinguished from separate reporting.

Source genealogy

Grouped by recorded original statement, not by publisher. Unmapped sources have unknown dependency; linked statements may also share an earlier origin. This is not an independence score.

  1. Dubai Airports via Reuters / Dubai Airports via The National
    • Reuters / Euronews: airport suspension [1] · Relayed statement
    • The National: operator statement and flight tracking [2] · Relayed statement
  2. Flightradar24 via The National
    • The National: operator statement and flight tracking [2] · Relayed statement
Show source graph

Left: publishers; right: recorded original statement. Converging lines show shared origin, not publication order. Dashed nodes have unknown dependency.

Read with a source omitted

Reading aid: switch off a source or family to inspect the remaining visible support below. Evidence status is not recalculated.

How to read this table

Reading aid only. Switch off a source or its recorded family to inspect the remaining visible support for exact claim texts. Evidence status is not recalculated. Shared wording or a shared family does not prove independence. Only recorded links labelled “supports” count here; context and contradiction links are not support. The dossier itself is unchanged.

Claim → supporting sources · recorded links
ClaimSupporting sourcesVisible support
The airport spokesperson attributed the suspension to suspected drone activity.[1]Support remains visible
The operator specifically confirmed a departure suspension.[2]Support remains visible
The National also reports a separate tracker indication of delay.[2]Support remains visible

What we know

Departures were suspended for 32 minutes. The National also reported flight-tracking evidence of delays and resumed traffic.

Reuters and The National relay the same airport statement about suspected drones. The National additionally reports a separate Flightradar24 observation of disruption. These are two reporting families, but not independent drone identification.

Data
No structured detail recorded
Hit / damaged · Fell near · Intercepted (claimed) · Human consequences

What remains unknown

Drone identification and operator remain unverified here. Reuters broadly says all flights; the explicit operator statement specifies departures, which this dossier follows. The tracker average delay is not the suspension duration. Closure times are not drone observation times.

No operator established in the selected reporting.

How the story changed

  1. Airport departures suspended after suspected drone activity; traffic resumes that morning. [2]

Original sources (2)

2 source families · a count of sources is not a verification score

1Reuters / Euronews: airport suspension15 Feb 2019 · source family: Reuters2The National: operator statement and flight tracking15 Feb 2019 · source family: The National

Search native-language coverage

External Google News search using the recorded place and dossier date. Results may concern other events; they have not been reviewed by DroneLedger.

Editorial changes

  1. Revision 2 · 17 Oct 2026Added a sourced general counter-drone measure at this location.
  2. Revision 1 · 16 Oct 2026Curated dossier created after checking the cited sources line by line.

Cite this dossier

Permanent page · Revision 2

Chicago

DroneLedger editorial team. “Suspected drone activity suspends Dubai airport departures.” Dossier dubai-airport-suspected-drone-2019-02-15, revision 2, updated 17 Oct 2026. https://droneincidents.com/incident/dubai-airport-suspected-drone-2019-02-15/v2/

APA

DroneLedger editorial team. (17 Oct 2026). Suspected drone activity suspends Dubai airport departures (Dossier dubai-airport-suspected-drone-2019-02-15, revision 2). https://droneincidents.com/incident/dubai-airport-suspected-drone-2019-02-15/v2/

Cite the revision you used: later revisions may change evidence states.

Cite this version

Maker
DroneLedger editorial team
ID
dubai-airport-suspected-drone-2019-02-15
Revision or edition
2
Release
20261109T002636372024-fb099f
Publication date
17 Oct 2026
Accessed
09 Nov 2026
Permanent URL
https://droneincidents.com/incident/dubai-airport-suspected-drone-2019-02-15/v2/
Hashed file
JSON · SHA-256 18f742ea042a3ebfa7192168fb2b7dbf43e274f677daa92baa752ed89c151eb3

Dataset DOI for this exact version: Not yet in a DOI snapshot · DOI binding manifest

Dataset DOI (series, not this revision): 10.5281/zenodo.23345422

DroneLedger editorial team. Suspected drone activity suspends Dubai airport departures. ID dubai-airport-suspected-drone-2019-02-15; revision or edition 2; release 20261109T002636372024-fb099f; published 17 Oct 2026. https://droneincidents.com/incident/dubai-airport-suspected-drone-2019-02-15/v2/ Accessed 09 Nov 2026. SHA-256 18f742ea042a3ebfa7192168fb2b7dbf43e274f677daa92baa752ed89c151eb3 (https://droneincidents.com/data/citations/incident/dubai-airport-suspected-drone-2019-02-15/r2/18f742ea042a3ebfa7192168fb2b7dbf43e274f677daa92baa752ed89c151eb3/data.json). Not yet in a DOI snapshot.

Citation uses the English reference edition. Access date is the UTC date when this page was built; change it to your consultation date when reusing the citation.

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