DINWIDDIE COUNTY, Va. -- The Dinwiddie County Airport was temporarily shut down on Friday after a police pursuit ended on the runway.
On Friday morning, a Dinwiddie County sheriff's deputy turned around on an SUV with South Carolina license plates and turned on his lights to pull over the car.
"The sheriff's office received a call of a vehicle driving recklessly at a high speed north on Route 1," Major William Knott with the Dinwiddie County Sheriff's Office said.
The car then took off at a high rate of speed, with the deputy saying the driver was possibly going over 100 miles per hour. The driver then took a back road and entered the airfield through a fence, stopping right at the edge of the runway.
Police arrested the driver, 33-year-old Brandon Walter Medina, of Liberty, South Carolina. He is facing multiple charges, including eluding police and damage to airport property.
In his car, they found a weapon and a small amount of marijuana.
At this time, investigators are still trying to determine why the man drove away from police in the first place.
The airport was shut down for about an hour as police responded to the situation. At this time, the airport has been reopened.
CBS 6 senior reporter Wayne Covil was at the scene and had the chance to speak with three pilots whose flight paths were impacted by the situation.
Each pilot said that while they have experienced changes to their flights due to weather or mechanical issues, they have never had to change their plans due to a police presence on the runway.
"I've had delays due to weather, delays due to problems at the airport but never delays due to a police chase at the airport," Kevin Cargill, a pilot, said.
"Usually weather delays, airplanes break down quite a bit, so that can be an instance where we can't fly of course, but never a police pursuit," Alonso Mens, a flight instructor, said.
The shut down forced three planes in the air to divert to another airport and grounded three planes waiting to take off.
Hank Staebenau, another pilot, was in the air when he called in to land.
"A gentleman based here told me the airport was closed because of police activity," Staebenau said. "I did only one circle, one pattern circle, and at that point he said, okay, runway's open again, so I landed."
There was no damage to the runway from the incident.
This is a developing story, so anyone with more information can email newstips@wtvr.com to send a tip.
