Hamburg, 5 November 2023 (dpa/MIA) — The armed man who raced onto the apron of Hamburg Airport with his 4-year-old daughter in the car has been detained and the child freed after an 18-hour ordeal, police in the northern German city announced on Sunday.

"The suspect had left the car with his daughter," the police wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "The man was detained without resistance by the emergency services. The child appears to be unharmed."

Police had negotiated with the man for hours after he raced onto the apron of Hamburg airport on Saturday evening with his young daughter in the car, causing a complete halt of flights to and from Hamburg.

According to police, an armed man broke through a gate with his vehicle at around 8 pm (1900 GMT) on Saturday and drove onto the airport apron with a child passenger in the car. He had a gun and fired it twice into the air while also throwing "something resembling a petrol bomb" out of the window, according to the federal police.

Airport terminal buildings were evacuated, along with several aircraft, and the airport remained closed on Sunday.

The man, whose car was parked under a Turkish Airlines aircraft on the tarmac, had still been armed in the afternoon, according to Hamburg police.

"We have to assume currently that he is in possession of a loaded firearm and possibly also explosives of an unknown kind," the city's police posted on X, formerly Twitter.

The man had not demanded money, police spokeswoman Sandra Levgrün told dpa at the airport.

Police believe that a custody dispute may have be the reason for the hostage situation.

According to the information available so far, the child had been staying with her mother on Saturday. Police say they believe that the father "took the child away" from the mother, possibly forcibly, before driving to Hamburg and onto the airport tarmac.

A special police task force and police psychologist were at the scene.

The man's wife, who is said to have been staying in the city of Stade near Hamburg at the time, had previously contacted the state police about a possible child abduction, according to a spokesman for the federal police.

She has since travelled to the airport, a police spokeswoman said early on Sunday.

Police continued to negotiate with the man overnight after having first established contact late on Saturday. Negotiations were being held in Turkish, according to a police spokeswoman.

Flight operations had been suspended indefinitely due to the hostage situation, the airport announced early on Sunday. "There will be flight cancellations and delays throughout the day," it added. The police were asking passengers not to travel to the airport for the time being.

According to a police spokesman on Saturday evening, 3,200 people were affected by the evacuations.

In October authorities closed the same airport due to an attack threat on a flight from Tehran to Hamburg.

In July, climate activists from the Last Generation group paralysed the airport for hours. Flight operations had to be suspended for several hours for security reasons. Thousands of passengers, including many families with children, were affected.