Brussels airport bomb attack: Amid shutdown, search on for third attacker

The twin bomb attacks on Brussels airport today may have been carried out by two suicide bombers and the police are “actively looking” for a third attacker, the federal prosecutor said.

“There is a photo of three men taken at Zaventem airport and it is possible that two of them carried out a suicide attack while the third is being actively sought,” federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw said, after police issued a wanted notice for the man.

Brussels airport will remained closed today, an official said, after twin bombings killed 14 people in the departure hall.

“The airport will remain closed through Wednesday,” the airport’s chief executive Arnaud Feist said on Zaventem airport’s official twitter feed.

In a briefing, Feist added: “It’s too soon to evaluate the damage in the terminal. We don’t yet have access since the investigators are still busy with their probe.”

“On Wednesday we’ll see the state of the terminal and whether we can quickly fix what was damaged and restart some of the facilities,” he said.

Under normal circumstances about 20,000 people work at the airport daily, he said.

Feist said Belgian soldiers and police were present at the airport, as has been the case since heightened worries about terrorism after the attacks in Paris attacks last year.

“But we don’t systematically control people entering the airport and we don’t check their luggage either,” Feist said.

All flights into Brussels were being diverted to other Belgian airports or in some cases to neighbouring countries.