Germany's airports face a security review after a man stole a motorized glider from a Frankfurt airfield and threatened to crash it into the city's financial center on the weekend, prompting fears of a terrorist attack.

Roland Koch, the governor of the state of Hesse where Frankfurt is situated, told the German daily Bild Zeitung that security at small airports like the one at Babenhausen, the airfield from where 31-year-old psychology student Franz Stephan Strambach stole the Dimona TC 80 modern motorized glider, would be reviewed.

Offiicals said that Strambach forced his way onto the aircraft with an imitation gun before flying the glider around for two hours, making several threatening descents on skyscrapers - including the European Central Bank - before landing at Frankfurt airport. His flight-of-fancy caused the airport, continental Europe's busiest, to close while tall buildings in the city were evacuated, roads and bridges close and military jets were put on high alert.

Concern around the country

Sunday's incident has prompted concern at Germany's airports. Wilhelm Bender, head of the Frankfurt airport, reiterated Koch's sentiments by saying that overall security across Germany's network needed to be tightened.

"Apparently it was possible for someone with a pistol simply to walk in and take an airplane," Bender said also in Bild Zeitung. "It's sad that a crazy person succeeded in paralyzing an entire city for hours."

Bender added that the authorities would be complacent to argue simply that the Frankfurt incident had ended peacefully, and pointed to the security risks and high costs involved. The incident had cost the airport "hundreds of thousands of euros" in damages because of flight delays, he said.

Access to airports, security at border fencing and identity checks have been subject to improvements across Germany since September 11, but officials maintain that these improvements are ongoing and will continue to be reviewed.

To shoot down or not to shoot down?

Security officials are unanimous that new measures to prevent such situations in the future must be implemented. But the incident again raises the question of action after the fact. If an aircraft is successfully commandeered by a person or people intent on causing loss of life on a major scale, should that aircraft, with passengers and crew onboard, be shot down?

In Berlin, Lieutenant Colonel Hannes Wendroth, a Defense Ministry spokesman, told the Financial Times that the specialist panel set up after the terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001 to review appropriate responses to aerial threats from rogue aircraft had yet to reach any conclusions on what action to take. Asked whether the military would have been allowed to shoot down the plane, Wendroth said, "You would need to take special care in deciding to do that over a built-up area."

"Once it emerged that this plane had nothing but the pilot and fuel on board, it could certainly be supposed that it would come down of its own accord," he said.

During the two-hour flight and attack threat in Frankfurt, military Phantom jets shadowed the glider while city authorities ordered thousands of people to leave the main rail station, two opera houses and several skyscrapers which were mostly empty on a post-Christmas season Sunday afternoon.

Schröder, Struck and regional minister would decide

It emerged on Monday that Chancellor Gerhard Schröder had been regularly kept informed of developments during the scare despite the outcome being deemed a minor security worry. In the event of a larger threat, the chancellor would have been responsible for ordering the aircraft to be shot down. The decision would have been made jointly with the defense minister Peter Struck and a senior regional politician in Frankfurt, officials confirmed.

The defense minister himself offered little new information regarding the government's stance on the "deadly force" option. Struck said in the German daily Berliner Morgenpost that action must be appropriate to the situation at hand. Speaking about possible responses to aerial threats, Struck said, "One must balance (the response) with what happens when a plane approaches a skyscraper with terrorist aims."

Wendroth said that the security forces' handling of the incident "had gone very well." He added that the liaison between German air security staff and NATO officials, responsible for overall air safety in Europe, had been "very smooth and close."