A 17-year-old fleeing a New Hampshire state trooper drove a black 2008 Ford Mustang through the perimeter fence at Portsmouth International Airport on the night of Aug. 29, crossed an active aircraft parking apron, and slammed into a parked Pilatus PC-12 turboprop worth well over $6 million before anyone on the ramp could get out of the way, according to NBC Boston and Fox News.

Key Points

• The driver, identified by police as Wyatt Seely, 17, of Rochester, N.H., was fleeing a trooper on Durham Street when the pursuit ended inside the airfield, according to NBC Boston.
• Seely was driving with his headlights off, and troopers had already been searching for the Mustang over reported crimes in other jurisdictions before the chase began, per Fox News.
• He faces aggravated DWI, DWI, disobeying a police officer, conduct after an accident, and a reckless-driving violation, according to Boston.com‘s report on the New Hampshire State Police release.
• The aircraft, a PlaneSense-operated Pilatus PC-12, suffered a severed wing and collapsed landing gear — damage the aviation news outlet AeroTime reported is likely severe enough to total the plane.
• No injuries were reported on the ground or in the air, since the PC-12 was stationary and unoccupied at the time of impact.

The Mustang tore through the fence line separating public roadway from active airfield, rolled across the apron PlaneSense uses to stage its fractional fleet, and hit a Kubota tractor before colliding with the parked turboprop. Both the car and the plane came away badly mangled, but responders from Portsmouth police and fire, Newington police, and Pease Fire and Emergency Services found no one hurt when they reached the scene, Boston.com reported.

What PlaneSense Said

PlaneSense, the Portsmouth-based fractional aircraft operator that has run Pilatus turboprops out of the airport since 1995, confirmed the damage directly. The company told AeroTime that the airplane “sustained significant damage” but that no employees were hurt and its flight operations were not affected. PlaneSense currently operates more than 60 PC-12 turboprops and PC-24 light jets, according to the same report, and a single new PC-12 NGX now carries a list price of roughly $6.2 million, per aircraft-industry pricing data — meaning the tab from one wrecked wing alone can run into seven figures before a shop even opens the hangar doors.

What Happens Next

Seely was taken to a local hospital for evaluation and was scheduled to be arraigned in Portsmouth District Court on Sept. 9. Aggravated DWI in New Hampshire is a misdemeanor that can still carry jail time and a license revocation when a crash results, separate from whatever civil liability follows for the property damage. Airports the size of Pease keep their aircraft ramps sealed off from public roads for exactly this reason — a teenager’s decision to run from a trooper turned a residential street chase into a six-figure insurance claim and a multimillion-dollar airplane sitting on three working landing gear instead of four.