Renton Airport facing increasing security concerns; latest break-in on Friday morning

Renton’s Airport helps bring billions of dollars of revenue into our community, and the airport must maintain tight security to keep air traffic and airport businesses running on schedule.

Unfortunately, starting around the time of the pandemic, there has been an increasing number of trespasses, thefts, break-ins, and other security breaches at the airport. Some of these have been incidences like unauthorized visitors in secure area or stolen cars in the parking lots.

The latest such event happened Friday morning, five days ago.  In this latest break-in, seven general aviation airplanes used for pilot training were damaged, a building was broken into, and computers and tools were stolen.  I’ve been told by a knowledgeable but unofficial source that at one point during the break-in, the thief even made an unauthorized call on a flight radio, communicating with air traffic controllers who were understandably confused about who they were communicating with.

Preliminarily, the aircraft damage appears to be mostly broken windows, but full evaluations will be needed to assure the safety of these and other nearby aircraft.

To the thieves and those following the latest crime trends in Renton, these airport break-ins may look like a simple extension of an increasing crime wave. With automobiles being stolen and vandalized at about three times the rate they were a couple years ago, it may seem like airplanes at our airport would be next.

But for those of us who have worked around aircraft professionally, we recognize these airport break-ins as much more serious than a simple escalation of property crime.  These attacks on airplanes are Federal Offences, involving serious felonies that can potentially put the public and air traffic system in danger.  Under Federal Regulations 18. 32, (a) “Whoever willfully … sets fire to, damages, destroys, disables, or wrecks any aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States or any civil aircraft used, operated, or employed in interstate, overseas, or foreign air commerce….shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years or both.”

A potential twenty-year prison sentence is harsh, but considering that lives can be lost due to unauthorized tampering with aircraft, the federal government understandably takes these breaches very seriously.

The Friday morning break-in is under investigation, and the authorities do have some leads.  Because the crime is under an active investigation, I’m not going to share any further details about it here.

Airport management and airport businesses are reviewing their security needs, and making further perimeter enhancements.  What we need to do as a greater community is work together to reverse the crime trends that are increasingly putting our airport in harm’s way.  The safety of the flying public and billions of dollars in local revenue depend on us maintaining a secure airport.

A perimeter fence topped with barbed wire protects much of the airport, but it has gates for access and it’s open to the lake, so it requires heavy surveillance as well.

Follow-up:

The investigation revealed that this heavy box wrench was likely used as a blunt instrument during the crime to damage several aircraft windshields. The police case number can be found on the evidence tag.