I-Team: Yet another driver crashes into CLE airport
CLEVELAND (WJW) — The FOX 8 I-Team has uncovered yet another security breach at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, the latest in a growing number of incidents.
This comes to light as so many people will be flying for the holidays.
The latest incident involved another car barreling through an airport fence — and it happened where we’ve seen it before.
The I-Team investigated after we learned of what happened on Nov. 11.
A Cleveland police report shows a driver sped down West Hangar Road. Then, he crashed through a fence and the vehicle rolled multiple times.
Police also said the driver then surprised workers in a maintenance building. They held him for police.
It happened steps away from where a driver made headlines a few years ago for plowing through an airport fence.
The latest case comes to light on Thanksgiving weekend. Last year on this weekend, a man crashed a fence and drove onto the Hopkins airfield.
We met Yvonne Dixon flying to Atlanta.
“I don’t understand how that can happen,” she said.
She also pointed out she had seen some of our other reporting. Video just released showed a woman back in August roaming around a secure area with parked planes. No one at the airport discovered the woman for three hours.
Now another case made Dixon think about safety.
“They watch. They’re focused on what goes on here inside, but I don’t know what goes on outside,” she said.
Adding to all of this, the I-Team also found an assistant commissioner for the Airport was suspended without pay last month for two days. Records show he allowed a worker to go through a security door without swiping in with a badge.
The I-Team wanted to talk to the people running the airport. Over two days, we put in a request to talk to someone from Hopkins’ top management. But no one from the airport agreed to face an I-Team camera to talk about your security — not even now, at the start of the rush for holiday travel.
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Hopkins sent a statement about the latest driver barreling through a fence:
On November 11, 2023, CLE had a perimeter fence incident in which a driver experiencing a medical condition breached the perimeter fence. The incident was resolved within minutes and the driver was taken for medical care. Perimeter security was restored that evening, and no operations were affected. The incident remains under investigation and at this time all reports, videos, pictures are considered SSI (sensitive security information).
Statement from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport
However, despite referring to a “medical condition,” that driver also walked into the lobby of a maintenance building and said “hello” to a worker. Then, police found that driver had walked into a break room, talking to other workers and asking for a banana.
Again, travelers we met expect high-level security.
“They need to be doing more. It’s a security risk,” one man said.
A woman who’d just landed in Cleveland said, “Security is the most important, so I don’t mind waiting.”
No charges have been filed at this time in the latest case.
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