MAN SKIPS HIS DELTA FLIGHT TO STEAL A JET TUG, CRASH IT, AND GO AFTER AMERICAN'S TOILET TRUCK

A 26-year-old was sitting in Terminal A at John Wayne Airport on Tuesday evening, booked on a Delta flight to Seattle. Instead he walked over to Terminal B, got an emergency exit door open, and stepped out onto the tarmac around 5:30 p.m., which is apparently a thing that can just happen in Orange County. He took an Alaska Airlines tug, the vehicle that tows jets and baggage carts, drove it around a live ramp, crashed it into another vehicle near Gate 7, then tried to steal an American Airlines lavatory service truck before Airport Police Services took him down. That is the truck that empties airplane toilets. Cops stopped him one airline short of the sweep. A SkyWest pilot got on the radio to ask ground control why law enforcement was swarming the vehicles behind his plane, and the controller told him someone stole a tug and a ground stop was in effect. The airport says no official ground stop was ever issued. So the tower and management watched two different evenings. Gate 7 shut for about ten minutes while crews checked the route for debris. Delta said it is cooperating with police and has "zero tolerance for unlawful behavior." Skyler Jay Barr of Everett, Washington was booked on suspicion of vehicle theft, trespassing and vandalism.

Why you should give a shit: A ticketed passenger got from a gate chair to the driver's seat of an aircraft tug on nothing but a door that opened, and the thing that stopped him was a cop who happened to be close, which is luck doing security's job at an airport that moves 11 million people a year.