TULSA -- Maintenance crews with Tulsa International Airport have fixed the fences and gates where troopers said Jerry Newman led them on a chase into the airport’s secured area.
An airport spokeswoman said the breach happened around 6:20 a.m. Wednesday on the north side of Tulsa international Airport.
The chase stayed on the west side of the airfield where the majority of the air traffic is corporate and private aircraft officials said.
Pilots tuned into air traffic control heard,”ground and clearance standby, we’ve got a high-speed pursuit going on the airport. Somebody broke onto the field…” said an airport operations official.
Air traffic controllers were heard switching an aircraft from the west side runway (36L/18R) to the airport’s main runway (36R/18L).
“Just for your plan, I’m going to take you over to 36 right until OPS has time to do a FOD check (foreign object debris) on the runway since they had that vehicle running around on the runway over there,” said a controller.
An FAA spokesman tells 2 Works For You TSA and the Tulsa International Airport are handling the security, no flights were affected at the time of the chase.
2 Works For You spoke with Allen Heginbotham, a pilot who has 28 years of experience flying at Tulsa International Airport.
“It was just surprising because there is so much security here, being around Tulsa, I’ve heard it a couple of times, it is very unusual for somebody to crash into the gate,” said Heginbotham.
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