Vilnius airport balloon closure, Sept 22 - 20 flights hit
Belarusian balloon markers closed Vilnius Airport's approach zone from 23:25 on September 21 to 02:40 on September 22, 2026, disrupting about 20 flights, LRT reported.
Belarusian balloon navigation markers closed Vilnius International Airport's approach zone from 23:25 local time on September 21 to 02:40 on September 22, 2026, and about 20 flights were disrupted, LRT reported. AirVeto has reconstructed earlier balloon-driven closures of this airport in January, April and June.
Vilnius Airport shut its approach zone for three hours overnight
Vilnius Airport restricted the airspace above the airport late on Monday, September 21, citing navigation markers characteristic of contraband balloons detected in zones it considers risky for aviation. The restriction ran from 23:25 to 02:40, a closure of three hours and fifteen minutes.
LRT put the number of affected flights at about 20; Vakarų ekspresas counted 17 affected flights, 12 of them diverted. The two counts come from different outlets and AirVeto does not reconcile them. Passengers whose flights were disrupted or cancelled were told to contact their airlines directly.
As in the three earlier Vilnius Airport closures AirVeto has reconstructed this year, the trigger was a navigation signal. Neither LRT nor tv3.lt reported a confirmed sighting of a balloon in flight, or a recovered payload, tied to this specific closure.
Lithuanian officials call the balloon campaign a hybrid attack
Lithuanian officials view the balloon campaign as a hybrid attack by the Minsk regime, LRT reported. The airport itself, in a statement carried by tv3.lt, tied Monday's closure to that same campaign, saying navigation markers characteristic of balloons had been recorded in areas it treats as risky for aviation.
AirVeto has now reconstructed four Vilnius Airport balloon closures in 2026
LRT reported the previous such incident struck in June, after which operations ran uninterrupted for more than three months. The airport's own tally, cited by tv3.lt, puts the total number of balloon-related disruptions this year at about ten. AirVeto's reconstructed archive, which tracks the airport specifically rather than every reported disruption, counts this closure as the fourth: after the eight-balloon closure of January 28, the April 9 closure and the June 8 closure.
The wind over Vilnius blew from the north, not the southeast
Around 23:25 local time on September 21, the wind at 2,000 m over Vilnius Airport blew from the NNW at 22 km/h. At 3,000 m it also came from the NNW, at 17 km/h. At balloon transit altitude, that flow was pushing toward the south-southeast: away from central Vilnius, not toward it from Belarus, which borders Lithuania to the south. Full methodology is on the AirVeto methodology page.
This reconstruction is based on reporting by LRT and tv3.lt/BNS and AirVeto's wind-model data for the closure window.
Vilnius airport balloon series - 2026
Sources
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