PPRuNe Forums - Drunk driver arrested on runway @ FWA

Luckily there was no accident involving aircraft as Kitty Hawk has 14 arrivals about that time.

Posted on Wed, Jul. 16, 2003

Driver on runway spurs brief closure
By Masaaki Harada
The Journal Gazette

A drunken driver crashed through a gate at Fort Wayne International Airport and drove on the main runway early Tuesday, an airport official said.
The intrusion forced the closure of the main runway for about 90 minutes, Airport Community Affairs Director Sandra Lux said.

An employee of Mercury Air saw an Oldsmobile being driven down a taxiway just before 2 a.m., a report said. He followed the car and told the driver to stop, but the driver backed up and started down Runway 5-23, the 12,000-foot-long main runway of the airport.

The Airport Public Security Department - the airport's police force - took over the pursuit and the driver finally stopped on the runway, the report said.

The driver told an officer she did not know where she was or how she had gotten there, the report said.

Fort Wayne police arrived at the airport to assist other officers. The woman's blood-alcohol level was 0.16 percent, twice the legal limit, the report said.

Lesley Alspach, 32, of Roanoke was arrested on multiple charges, including operating a vehicle while intoxicated, driving while suspended and violating federal aviation law.

The runway's closure did not affect cargo flights scheduled through the night, Lux said. No passenger flights were scheduled at that hour.

The investigation found the driver crashed into the airport fence on a curve on Indianapolis Road.

The steep turn from Indianapolis Road to Ferguson Road west of the terminal building has resulted inseveral car accidents before, Lux said.

She did not recall another case involving a car that crashed through a gate and continued onto a runway.