Denmark’s Drone Airport Chaos Just Turbocharged Europe’s Counter-UAS Race

When multiple drones showed up over Danish airports and a key fighter base this fall, the Danish government realized it needed to invest in better counter-UAS (cUAS) measures, because the next time this occurs they may not be as lucky.

The Danish government called it a “hybrid attack,” that grounded flights, caused panic, and closed terminals. The incident acted as a real-world stress test for how well Europe’s current counter-UAS (cUAS) systems can actually protect critical airspace.

Fast forward a few months, and we are already seeing the industry response. The Danish aerospace firm Terma has moved to acquire UK counter-drone and cUAS specialist OSL Technology, tightening Europe’s grip on airspace security at the exact moment the United States is tying itself in knots over a looming DJI apocalypse.

This one is worth looking at closely, because it shows how quickly a country needs to move once drones hit its headlines for all the wrong reasons.

A week of “hybrid attacks” and a nationwide drone ban

In late September, unidentified drones forced Copenhagen Airport to halt operations for nearly four hours, with similar disruptions at Oslo Airport, and then at Danish airports in Aalborg and Billund.

Flights were stopped, terminals backed up, and for a while nobody really knew who was in control of the airspace. The pattern did not stop at civilian hubs.

Danish officials reported drones over Fighter Wing Skrydstrup, home to much of the country’s F-16 and F-35 fleet, and described the activity as a coordinated “hybrid attack” by a capable actor rather than a random hobbyist. At that point, it turned into both an aviation safety problem and a national security one.

In response, Demark did three things:

• It raised its crisis preparedness to the highest level in years and invited additional NATO surveillance assets into the region.
• It pushed for stronger legal authority so airports and security services could actually neutralize drones in protected airspace.
• It went as far as ordering a five-day nationwide ban on civilian drones ahead of major EU meetings in Copenhagen, carving out only narrow exemptions for state and emergency operations.

DroneXL has already covered how those drone incidents rippled across Europe, including the “drone chaos” that shut down Copenhagen and Oslo airports and the way they fed into wider plans for an EU-wide “drone wall” of sensors, radars, and counter UAS measures along the bloc’s eastern flank.

Terma buys OSL and builds a counter-UAS heavyweight

At the end of November, Terma A/S announced it had completed the acquisition of UK-based OSL Technology, a company that has spent the last decade living inside the civil airspace problem set.

OSL’s counter UAS systems are already deployed at major airports, sensitive national infrastructure sites, and defense customers that need to detect, track, and classify small drones in cluttered, RF-noisy environments.

OSL brings a full layered counter-UAS stack to the table:

• Multi-sensor detection: Radio Frequency (RF) sensing, 360-degree and sector radar, and EO/IR cameras all fused together so operators are not guessing which dot matters or which “drone” is actually a bird.
• AI at the edge: Their INSIGHT analytics platform adds object recognition and tracking to existing camera networks, which matters a lot when you’re trying to tell a DJI Mini or small FPV quad from a flock of gulls at night.
• FACE command and control: A unifying C2 layer that pulls all those sensor feeds into one operational picture and drives automated workflows for alerts, investigation, and engagement when rogue drones enter restricted airspace.

On the other side of the deal, Terma is not a startup trying to prove itself. The company already supplies surveillance radar, mission systems, and command-and-control software to navies, air forces, and space customers across NATO. Their gear already sits in air defense networks that worry about cruise missiles and fighter jets, not just small UAS.

What this means for airports and critical infrastructure

Even if some of the Danish “sightings” turn out to be misidentified planes, or bright stars, the operational lesson is the same:

• Airports, ports, refineries, power plants, and data centers are now in the crosshairs for drone attacks.
• Shutting down a major airport for a few hours is an incredibly soft pressure point compared to the cost of a handful of off-the-shelf drones.

OSL has lived that reality from the airport side for years, quietly integrating counter-UAS detection systems into real-world sites that cannot afford to close every time someone thinks they see a quadcopter near the approach path.

Terma has lived it from the military side, where unidentified radar returns and drones near sensitive bases can escalate into diplomatic incidents in minutes. Putting those worlds together gives Denmark a homegrown, exportable counter-UAS solution that ticks a lot of boxes for NATO partners who suddenly care a lot more about drone defense than they did five years ago.

And all of this is happening while the United States is still arguing over what it is allowed to shoot down, who actually has authority to act, and which drones are even legal to buy in the first place.

DroneXL’s Take

From a U.S. perspective, the Terma/OSL deal is a reminder that other countries are not waiting around for Washington to figure out its counter-UAS strategy.

Europe has been moving fast in order to keep up with the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. Denmark had a drone scare and went straight into nationwide restrictions, new authorities, and now a major industry consolidation around counter-UAS and drone detection platforms.

While Denmark’s response of imposing nationwide restrictions may have appeared a bit extreme, I believe it’s exactly what was needed at that point in time to provide the Danish military a chance to get their act together. This instance reminds me of the New Jersey drone sightings back in late 2024.

Ask yourself – what steps should your country be taking if it were to be targeted next?