Monday Apr 28 2008
Today’s commentary from the Sunday Palm Beach Post story “Elderly Man Drives onto Runway” found via the Consumerist. That’s basically the entire story: Old guy accidentally drives through a gate and into airport property.
Police do not believe Friday’s security breach was terrorism related. “It’s a possibility that this guy lost his way or was disoriented.” They quickly added, “But until they finish interviewing him, we won’t know for sure.
Ya think? Is that really necessary to reference terrorism JUST because this particular occurrence of wacky elderly driving mishaps happened at an airport?
A Consumerist reader comments: Can we PLEASE stop throwing the T-word around whenever anyone does anything remotely odd? And I agree. Throwing around “terrorism” for the slightest of security infractions dilutes was real terror is and was in our country.
Also the report says he “drove onto runway 9.” Really? Maybe. Hell i wasn’t there. But I do know that large airports have little two lane roads that run the perimeters for maintenance. You don’t just drive onto airport property and straight onto a runway.
Maybe I’m wrong, but more plausible is that he ran the gate and turned onto one of these perimeter roads - which are actually roads. Its a much more believable error. I’d dare speculate he probably wasn’t even a on a taxi way much less a runway, and not barreling headlong into an MD-11 like the bus on Speed.
This is just another article about elderly drivers. There’s zero terrorism danger. There’s no wish to plant fear and no ill-intention towards the U.S., it’s people, our government, or aviation infrastructure. This story has as much to do with terrorism as an elderly person driving through a window of an “Old Country Buffet.”