Armor-plated blockade. A would-be skyjacker, without flight training, was trapped all by himself in the plane on the tarmac after the plane’s crew scrambled off. Police blocked any attempt at take-off with an 8-1\/2 ton Bearcat armored vehicle.. The man surrendered. Image: Teri New-McDougle
A would-be skyjacker? A confused, spontaneous act?
LACROSSE, Wis. – A man crashed this picukp truck through a metal gate on the east side of the LaCrosse airport and headed for an executive jet being prepared for flight and flashed a knife and said he had a bomb. Meanwhile, police arrived with an armed Bearcat vehicle and blocked the plane from taking off. Whether the man had any flight training wasn’t known. It appeared he may have been high on something and not carefully planned out. This about 3 p.m. According to police, witnesses and other sources, this was what happened:
> A man in his 30s, seemingly intoxicated, walked onto the lobby of Colgan Air , which offers concierge services for passengers on charter and executive filgts. The man had a backpack and grocery bag. A Colgan employee escorted the man outside to the parking lot. The man got into a pickup truck and sped off.
> The man rammed his truck through a metal gate and drove onto the runway.
> The driver did several doughnuts around an airplane, then went down the runway, turned back around, and then parked next to an executive jet being readied for flight outside of the Colgan offices.
> The man boarded the plane up steps into the cabin with his belongings. Three employees, thought to be two pilots and an attendant, were on board. One of the three picked up the man’s gear and assisted him, porter-like, off the plane.
> One of the employees, still on board, unplugged the the plane’s battery power, in effect disabling the craft. Both of these employees ran to safety in the Colgan building.
> The man returned and got onto the jet again, closing the steps behind him.
> A Colgan employee used a remote switch on the exterior of the aircraft to open the door for police when they arrived.
> A Bearcat armored police vehicle was maneuvered to block the plane’s steerable front landing gear. Other police vehicles surrounded the plane.
> Two police negotiators entered the plane.
> The man said he flashed a knife and said had explosives and threatened to blow up the aircraft if they didn’t give him “some space.” He also claimed to havet wo pistols.
> An officer fired a non-lethal round that hit the man in a knee. The man threw down the knife, although he still had another edged weapon. The officer fired a second round to the lower thigh.
> The man retreated into the cockpit. After a few minutes he came out and surrendered.
Police, meanwhile, had blocked off neighborhoods on the east side of the airport, which is used for general aviation and private charters. This is where the main airport terminal was located until 1990, when the current terminal was built across the runways.
French Island airport. LSE is bounded by the Mississippi and Black rivers north of LaCrosse. Facing nirth: The terminal, used by airlines, is on the left with three parallel taxiways to the gates. The charter and private plane center is in the lower right.
How upper-crust flies. Interior of a charter jet.
Private lounge. Waiting in luxury.