Air Force Investigating After Intruder Breaches Joint Base Andrews

The Air Force launched an investigation Thursday after an unauthorized individual made it onto the Maryland base housing the president's special transport planes.

A spokesperson for Joint Base Andrews confirmed the event to Military.com, and said that the Air Force Office of Special Investigations was leading the investigation. An AFOSI spokesperson could not be reached for further comment.

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Officials did not answer questions about whether the individual was in custody, how far they had made it onto the base or if they gained access to any aircraft.

Joint Base Andrews is best known for its special airlift mission to transport VIPs such as the president and vice president. It's home to the VC-25A aircraft known as "Air Force One" when the commander in chief is onboard.

Breach attempts on U.S. military bases are not uncommon, but are rarely successful.

In 2018, several military installations across the U.S. faced threatening breach attempts, including Fort Meade, Maryland; Naval Base Kitsap in Washington; and Peterson Air Force in Colorado, according to a report from Task & Purpose.

Security Forces units, known as base defenders, were forced to look at their safety and security protocols after an individual drove his car all the way into the flight line at RAF Mildenhall, UK, in 2017.

In that incident, the Air Force said a "disturbed" man attempted to drive up the ramp of a parked CV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft on base, according to an Air Force Times report. Officials said the gaps in response was partially due to Mildenhall's Installation Defense Plan, which wasn't in line with current security protocols, according to the publication.

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at Oriana.Pawlyk@Monster.com. Follow her on Twitter @oriana0214.

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