‘Happened in seconds’: Driver skips baggage check and blasts a sedan straight into Detroit airport terminal

A truly shocking scene unfolded at the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport when a sedan smashed straight through the terminal entrance, striking a ticket counter and resulting in six people needing treatment. The driver of the vehicle was quickly taken into custody by authorities, though the cause of this bizarre incident is still completely unknown.

This wasn’t some slow fender bender; this was a serious breach of security and safety. The Wayne County Airport Authority (WCAA) confirmed the crash happened at about 7:30 PM on Friday. The car, described as a blue four-door sedan, didn’t just clip the curb; it blasted through the entrance of the McNamara Terminal, coming to a stop deep inside the departure lobby right in front of the airline counters.

If you’ve ever flown through that terminal, you can imagine the chaos. Video footage shared online showed the vehicle sitting stationary inside the terminal, its hood and trunk popped open, surrounded by utter destruction, per The Guardian. There was glass and debris everywhere, confirming the severity of the entry.

Everyone is lucky that no one was killed

It’s a huge relief that the response was so immediate. A traveler named Ali Khalifa, who witnessed the event, told local outlets that the entire crash “happened in seconds.” Khalifa added that the response from personnel was incredibly fast, saying, “The response was so quick, thank God.” That quick action is exactly what you want to see in a crisis like this.

The immediate priority was treating those who were affected. The WCAA fire department was on site promptly and treated six people right there at the scene. While the authorities didn’t specify the nature of the injuries, the fact that six people needed immediate medical attention following the impact is certainly alarming.

The airline whose counters were struck also provided an update on the situation. They stated that operations weren’t impacted, which is pretty incredible considering the visual evidence of the damage. They also confirmed that three of their employees were checked by emergency personnel after encountering debris from the crash.

You just don’t expect a vehicle to be sharing the same space as the baggage check-in area. We’ve seen people live in terminals, but it’s not often you hear about a car crashing through a building.

As of now, the investigation is fully underway, but there aren’t many answers yet. The driver is in custody, but their identity hasn’t been released. It’s genuinely frustrating when major incidents like this occur, and the motive remains a mystery.

Hopefully, the airport police will be able to figure out the cause soon, especially since the driver is already detained. For now, police tape cordons off the scene as they continue to sift through the wreckage and figure out the sequence of events that led a sedan to skip the baggage check and become an unwelcome arrival inside the terminal.