Two Christmas security breaches at major U.S. airports have many wondering how this could happen. INSIDE EDITION has the story.
It was a troubling breach of security that was caught on tape at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. A man scaled an eight-foot fence and ran up to a Southwest Airlines plane that had just landed.
Forty-nine-year-old Robert Bump, who police say was drunk, started slapping the plane's engine and then took off across the tarmac with the cops in pursuit. Bump is a former insurance salesman with a lengthy police record.
The disturbing incident happened on Christmas morning. The same day, another man scaled the fence at New Jersey's Newark International Airport.
The man, who was dressed as a woman, climbed over a security fence, crossed two runways and walked all the way to the Terminal C, before he was stopped by an airline employee and arrested.
Christine Negroni is an aviation writer and blogger, specializing in safety. She told INSIDE EDITION, "The airport perimeter has to be a secure place. The fact of the matter is that if it can be done and if what appears to be somebody testing the perimeter, it could potentially be terrorism. That is why you can have no tolerance for them."
Just last year, a man, who’s Jet Ski had broken down, climbed the fence at New York's JFK Airport. He told INSIDE EDITION, “I thought that going over the fence I would be seen on camera and an alarm would go off.”
Incredibly, he walked undetected across two runways and ended up at the Delta Airlines terminal where he was arrested.
In Philadelphia Airport last year, a man drove down the runway at 100 mph after crashing through a security fence. The airport was shut down as cops gave chase.
But the shocking video of a disturbed man running around on the tarmac in Phoenix is the most brazen incident yet.
Negroni said, "You can be sure tomorrow, those airports, and those airports in the United States and around the world will take a good look and say, 'Are we doing everything we can?'"
