Cheektowaga, N.Y. (WBEN) - A local man was arrested Tuesday morning after officials say he intentionally drove through a gate and onto a runway at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport.
According to NFTA Transit Police Chief Brian Patterson, the individual intentionally breached Service Gate 1 at the Buffalo airport at approximately 7:30 a.m. with a pickup truck, gaining access to the secure area of the airport.
"Once inside the secure area, the vehicle crossed a taxi runway before being apprehended outside of a training airplane near the middle of the airport. Transit police officers were notified and alerted by an Allied security guard assigned and posted at Gate 1, which allowed us to respond extremely quickly," said Chief Patterson during a press briefing Tuesday afternoon.
According to Chief Patterson, from the time the man breached the gate and was arrested outside the training plane, the apprehension took place within a six-minute period.
After apprehending the subject, officers secured the scene and rendered it safe by employing canine sweeps. Chief Patterson says there is no threat to any public safety.
"At this time, we are partnering with law enforcement partners, specifically the FBI. This is an ongoing investigation," Chief Patterson added.
It is not known at this time why the individual breached the gate at the airport and entered the secured area. It is believed the subject was traveling with traffic along Luiz Kahl Way before breaching the gate.
"At this point in time, from taking a look at video, some witnesses, we had an Allied guard on site. So listening to his account, we've come to the conclusion that this was intentional," Chief Patterson said.
The individual arrested was taken into NFTA Police custody without any further incident, where he has been charged with felony criminal mischief, criminal trespassing, and burglary. There could be additional charges issued as the investigation unfolds.
Because of the swift actions of police officers at the airport, Chief Patterson says there were no disruptions to regular operations of the airport.
"All of the personnel were notified, including the control tower, and they were able to take action to ensure that it did not disrupt airplane traffic," he said.
Chief Patterson adds these types of situations are part of the training for NFTA Police.
"In fact, we just recently had, what we call, a tri-annual training that takes these types of scenarios and plays them out to making sure there's a successful response to our efforts," he noted. "In this situation, officers know the airport best. Through conversations and sharing of information, officers happened upon this individual standing outside of the training plane and immediately identified him as the subject, and took him into custody without incident."
To his knowledge, Chief Patterson says this type of incident has not happened at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport in quite some time.
"I asked a few folks behind me who have been here many, many more years, it raised some eyebrows. I don't believe we've seen anything like this in quite a while," he said. I'm sure there's some stories that we could compare, but not to this extent. It's rare. Very rare."
Meanwhile, the training airplane the subject was arrested outside of is said to be a stationary, and doesn't even have an engine to it.
"To run an airport, it takes a lot of players, a lot of departments, a lot of divisions. As you may or may not know, we want to prepare for and make sure our passengers are safe, so we prepare for all scenarios," Chief Patterson described. "We have a firefighting division, they spend time training on the plane in case of emergencies, putting out fires, assisting people with evacuations. And then on the other side of it, we want to prepare for, as you can imagine, terrorism-related events that may take place revolving around a plane. So there are a lot of security concerns, as we're in the business of aviation business, that we've got to consider as first responders, and so a training plane allows us to do that."
The male subject also had a dog with him inside of the truck at the time of the incident. The dog has been safeguarded by NFTA Police.