Reminder: An Airport Runway Is Not A Safe Place To Drive, Intoxicated Or Not

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(kevindean)

It might be a tempting stretch of road, but the only wheels that should be hitting the runway at an airport belong to planes. In a recent example of such unsafe behavior, police say a drunk driver drove through fences and onto an active runway at the Louis Armstrong International Airport near New Orleans on Wednesday afternoon.

Authorities say other drivers called 9-1-1 just before 1 p.m. after seeing a Dodge Challenger crash through a perimeter fence at the airport and head onto a runway, The Times-Picayune reports.

At that point, airport staff had an eye on him and confronted the driver, a spokeswoman for the airpot says. But he continued driving across airport property and crashed through another fence on the other side of the airfield.

Local police eventually arrested him after a short chase, which ended an auto repair shop when someone reported a suspicious man hiding behind an air conditioning unit. He was arrested and charged with driving under the influence and hit-and-run.

Despite the fracas, everything at the airport went on as normal.

“There was no impact to any aircraft operations or any flights,” the spokeswoman said.
Drunk driver crashes onto runway at Louis Armstrong International Airport, JPSO says [The Times-Picayune]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist