Woman Demands Better Security After Car Stolen and Stripped at Columbus Airport

A Columbus woman is demanding better security at John Glenn Columbus International Airport after her car was stolen and later found stripped of its parts. Katy, a frequent traveler, left her Jeep Cherokee in the airport’s long-term parking garage during a trip but returned to find it missing. Despite searching every row of the fifth-floor garage and using her car's panic button, she couldn’t locate the vehicle, leading her to file a police report.

"I was blown away because this is an airport, which I assumed is the safest place in our city," said Katy. "We walked every single row on the fifth floor, baffled, looking at each other like, ‘I wonder what’s going on?’" After taking an Uber home in disbelief, Katy spoke to an airport police officer, who informed her that the garage’s surveillance cameras might not have captured the incident clearly due to their limited coverage.

Katy later received a call from Columbus Police, who informed her that her car had been found—but not in the condition she had hoped. The vehicle was discovered completely stripped and unrecognizable on the side of the road, before being towed to an impound lot. "I walked by it ten times until someone said, ‘No, that’s your car,’" she recalled. "It was completely stripped of everything."

Katy is now calling on the airport to upgrade its security systems, expressing frustration that an area so close to a highly secure airport terminal could have such lax surveillance. "It’s expensive to park there," she said. "I know they have millions of cars go through that parking garage. They should be able to have state-of-the-art equipment that monitors in and out, and it also has great surveillance."

According to airport officials, John Glenn Columbus International Airport maintains over 800 cameras and continuously works to improve security. While car thefts are rare, with only ten reported cases in the past six years, the airport acknowledged that three vehicles have been stolen in 2023 alone. A spokesperson emphasized that the parking garage is a public space, and incidents like this, though infrequent, can happen in any parking lot.

Despite these reassurances, Katy believes more can be done. "The security to get into the airport is so strict, and right there, attached to the airport, you have a situation where they’re not monitoring it," she said. "They don’t know the comings and goings of the cars. This should make us all stop and take notice."

Katy was particularly frustrated to learn that while airport records showed her entering the parking garage multiple times in the past month, there was no record of her vehicle leaving. She believes that with only one way in and one way out of the garage, monitoring vehicle movements should be more straightforward.

As Columbus continues to grow rapidly, Katy hopes that the airport will take security concerns seriously and implement measures similar to those in place at other major airports. "Something needs to change, and it needs to change right away," she said. While her car can be replaced, she is most concerned about the potential risk to passenger safety if security is not improved.