San Jose Mercury News – by Julia Love
SAN JOSE — Mineta San Jose International Airport suffered a security breach Sunday morning when an unauthorized man snuck onto the tarmac and then commandeered a maintenance vehicle in the parking lot, police said.
Miguel Zaragoza, 39, was booked into county jail Sunday and charged with trespassing and possession of a stolen vehicle, Sgt. Heather Randol of the San Jose Police Department said. Atlantic Aviation employees spotted Zaragoza about 10:15 a.m. near their ramp and escorted him to the lobby to wait for police.
But Zaragoza fled to the parking lot and seized a San Jose city truck, which he drove to the curb of Terminal B. He was apprehended there by operations and custodial staff as well as San Jose police.
Rosemary Barnes, a public information manager for the airport, said the airport is working with Atlantic Aviation, the Transportation Security Administration and San Jose police to investigate the incident. She said Zaragoza breached the west side of the airport, near Coleman Avenue, which is opposite the commercial terminal area, and no flights were affected.
“Our security procedures worked,” Barnes said. “There was no operational impact as a result of this incident and no threat to public safety.”
The incident came on the heels of a few other high-profile security breaches at the San Jose airport this year. In August, serial stowaway Marilyn Hartman successfully boarded a flight and traveled to Los Angeles International Airport, where she was arrested.
In April, a 15-year-old runaway from Santa Clara hopped the fence at the airport and curled up in the wheel well of a plane bound for Hawaii. Miraculously, he survived the five-hour flight.
Barnes said the trio of breaches are unrelated and should not prompt passengers to question airport security. She said the airport took steps to enhance security after the previous two incidents, though she declined to elaborate. It is unclear whether Zaragoza reached the tarmac by scaling the fence, as the 15-year-old runaway did, Barnes said.
Aviation security expert Douglas Laird said most airports see at least a few people hop their fences each year because making the barriers impenetrable is cost-prohibitive. As long as the intruders are swiftly detained, he said, the incidents do not pose a huge threat.
“As you get closer to the cargo facility, and as you get closer to where passenger planes are parked, the level of security increases pretty dramatically,” he said. “It bears a review of whether the security measures in place are working, but I don’t think it’s anything I’d lose sleep over.”
Contact Julia Love at 408-920-5536 or follow her at Twitter.com/byJuliaLove.
http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_26997943/security-breach-at-san-jose-international-airport
This reminds me of the time I was arrested for commandeering a golf cart. I let my girlfriend drive and she was trying to run down golfers. They threw their clubs at us. We couldn’t out-run the police car, so we surrendered.
I wonder if this guy wasn’t just drunk, because I can’t see any criminal intent here. What the hell did they think he was going to do with an airport maintenance vehicle?
Was this 1 of the invaders from south of the border ?