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'Tens of thousands' of passengers grounded after attack at Paris's Orly airport

Air
Jennifer Morris
20 March 2017

"Tens of thousands" of passengers were grounded at Paris’s Orly airport on Saturday after a man was shot dead when he attacked a soldier.

Police tape crime scene stock image.jpg

The 40-year-old was allegedly shot in Cape Town's Nyanga township

Police are still trying to establish the motive behind the assault on Saturday by 39-year-old Ziyed Ben Belgacem, which led to the temporary closure of the French capital’s second-busiest airport.

Tens of thousands of airline passengers were grounded after the airport closed for hours, with flights resuming shortly before 3pm local time.

Orly airport, on the south side of Paris, went into lockdown immediately after the incident at about 8.30am local time.

Passengers on aircraft that had just arrived were told to remain on board while a security sweep took place, the Independent reports.