Fewer intruders getting over security fences at Las Vegas airport

Associated Press

Thursday, May 26, 2016 | 2:56 p.m.

Fewer intruders are getting past the security fences that protect McCarran International Airport's runways than years past.

The number of breaches at the Las Vegas airport has fallen in recent years. In early 2015, the airport finished putting razor wire atop its 15 miles of fencing — and breaches dropped from eight in 2014 to one in 2015 and one in early 2016.

In October, a woman went not over the fence but through it by creating a gap and pushing herself through. She told authorities she was looking for a shortcut from the Strip to her hotel.

At the same time, an Associated Press investigation shows intruders breached perimeter security at the nation's ninth-busiest airport more often than officials disclosed. Since 2004, McCarran had 30 breaches — second most nationally among 31 of the nation's busiest airports that AP studied.

Nationally, breaches remain as frequent as ever, and are happening on average every 10 days at one of the 31 airports AP studied. Airports say perimeter defenses are strong and note that none of the 345 breaches AP documented involved a known terrorist plot.

When AP began scrutinizing the outer defenses of airports nationally, McCarran searched its records for breaches to the start of 2009. Due to limited staff time and a laborious records-search process, the airport said it could not check for breaches going back to 2004, as AP had requested.

McCarran officials identified 21 breaches between January 2009 and mid-February 2015.

Now, federal and other records show six breaches in 2007 and 2008.

Among them:

— In November 2008, a man was caught walking near a runway and taxiway. "What do I need a badge for?" he asked when confronted. He said he had climbed through a hole in the fence, but no hole was found.

— In October 2007, a man who had missed his plane because he was drinking in a bar climbed a fence to get onto the airfield in an effort to reach a ticket counter and rebook his flight. His wife had left without him. He was allowed to get on another flight.

— In January 2007, a man climbed over an airport fence, stole a tractor, crashed it through a security gate, hit a corporate jet and then, as authorities chased him, drove into a ditch. He was injured when the tractor rolled.

McCarran's search also missed an April 2009 incident in which a man who got over a gate climbed into a helicopter and began preparing to fly it..