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An Albury man has been arrested after allegedly stealing a truck and driving it into several aircraft at Wangaratta Aerodrome in regional Victoria on Wednesday evening.
According to local news reports, police allege the 36-year-old suspect was driving a stolen Ford F150 ute when he crashed through a secure area of the airport and into an aircraft hangar, then proceeded to drive into several light planes, causing severe damage.
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In one instance, the wing of a privately owned Tecnam P2010 TDI was ripped from its fuselage. A total of three aircraft are said to have been damaged in the incident.
According to reports, the suspect then fled the scene and drove to Shepparton, around 94km away. He was taken into police custody after allegedly breaking and entering into a local home.
The man is yet to be charged and is said to be assisting police with their enquiries.
A 23-year-old pilot of one of the damaged planes told the Border Mail that the attack was “pretty random” and “pointless”.
He said the wing on his aircraft would be unable to be repaired. Instead, the plane would need to be replaced, at a cost of over $1 million.
“There’s nothing we can do about it now, but it’s pretty upsetting to destroy something so beautiful,” he said.
It comes after police arrested three men in relation to an unlawful break-in at RAAF Base Darwin, in which a man allegedly assaulted a member of the Australian Defence Force and stole a white Ford Ranger.
The incident caused a base-wide lockdown, with military police, the Australian Federal Police and Northern Territory Police all involved in the search for the alleged assailants.
The vehicle originally escaped authorities; however, it was later tracked down in the remote town of Wadeye, approximately 400 km from the crime scene. Strike Force Trident – a specialist tactical unit of the Northern Territory Police Force – spearheaded the eventual arrest.
At the time of the incident, shadow defence minister James Paterson, said reports of the break-in were troubling.
“It’s always a concern when an unauthorised person gets access to an ADF base. It looks like in this instance that it was able to be responded to by military police and local police. But we need our bases to be secure,” he said.
“We need to make sure that unauthorised persons, whether they are someone who has got mental health issues, someone who is drunk or whether they’re someone with malign intent acting on behalf of a foreign power, are not able to access our bases.
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