Man caught after Lyon runway chase

FRENCH police arrested a man yesterday following a high-speed chase on the runway at Lyon airport after the driver rammed his car into the terminal and drove through the building.

Police said they began pursuing the white Mercedes when it was spotted speeding the wrong way down a nearby highway.

The driver first smashed through a security barrier at the Lyon-Bron business airport before changing direction and heading to Lyon’s main Saint-Exupery airport about 20 kilometers away.

There he rammed into automatic glass doors near the main entrance to Terminal 1 and drove through the building, smashing through another set of doors before emerging onto the runway, chased by about a dozen police vehicles as well as a helicopter.

A video posted online showed the car smashing into the building with a bang and showed the view afterwards of the smashed doors on either side.

The dramatic chase, witnessed by a journalist waiting on a plane at the airport, was captured in an amateur video posted on social media. It showed the car hitting a bump at one point, being lifted off the ground by the impact and then landing in a cloud of dust.

After continuing for a few meters the driver then abandons the car while it is still moving and tries to flee on foot.

He dodges several police vehicles before being wrestled to the ground.

Nobody was injured in the incident, which led to the suspension of all flights in and out of Lyon Saint-Exupery airport, France’s third largest.

The prosecutor’s office in Lyon said the 31-year-old man faced charges that included attempted murder, relating to the injuries sustained by the worker.

A source close to the case said the man suffered from psychiatric problems but did not have a police record, and was not on the country’s watchlist for suspected radicalization.