A woman driving with a small child in her car crashed through a gate at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and drove onto a runway, Phoenix police said Friday. 

The woman rammed the airport gate around 10 p.m. Thursday and drove onto the runway, police spokesman Sgt. Trent Crump said. Phoenix police with the Sky Harbor Airport chased down the driver after a few minutes and forced her vehicle to halt, authorities said in a media release sent to NBC News.

More on this story on NBC affiliate KPNX 12 News

The incident was the latest involving vehicles crashing through the airport's gates or fences and getting onto its runways. Sky Harbor spent $10 million to upgrade its perimeter security and access gates after a man being chased by police in 2005 crashed a stolen pickup through a gate and drove onto the runways, passing several jets on a taxiway. In 2003, two teens in a stolen car crashed through a perimeter fence and drove onto the airfield. Both incidents caused brief closure of aircraft operations. 

The driver and the child were not injured, Crump said.  The driver was "exhibiting signs of impairment" when she was arrested, the release said.

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Police said they were not aware of any flights being endangered, but airport operations were stopped for about 15 minutes because of it. 

Sky Harbor's communication department declined to release any details, saying only that all operations returned to normal shortly after a "security incident." 

Police also declined to release any more information until later Friday.

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Just north of the Indiana Toll Road, off Cline Avenue, sits the Gary/Chicago International Airport.

Its name sounds substantial. Its annual budget is in the millions of dollars. And Chicagoans -- along with citizens of Gary -- spend millions in tax dollars every year to help keep it in business.

But in spite of an annual operating budget of more than $3 million -- plus tens of millions more being spent on a runway expansion and other capital projects -- the GCIA terminal sits mostly empty. The front entrance is usually locked; the parking lot is nearly vacant, and the skies are -- for the most part -- empty.

That’s because GCIA has only one passenger flight -- Allegiant Airlines Flight 650. It flies nonstop from Sanford, Fla., to Gary, where passengers unload and new passengers board. Allegiant changes the flight number to 651, and the plane takes off and heads back to Sanford.

It’s time on the ground in Gary: Usually less than one hour.

Once the flight is gone, the terminal is shut down and locked up for several days. The Allegiant flight only comes to Gary twice a week, on Thursdays and Sundays. That’s it.

It’s one of the many curiosities of The Little Airport that Could. 

While the airport gets substantial funding from the City of Gary, the State of Indiana and the federal government, it gets additional millions of dollars every year from the City of Chicago -- more than $3.6 million dollars since the beginning of 2011 alone, financial documents reveal. Since 1995, Chicago has sent a total of more than $26 million to help operate the Gary airport.

It all comes from an agreement signed by the cities of Chicago and Gary in 1995, which proposed "the development, enhancement, and operation of existing airports and development of any new Regional Airport serving the Bi-State Region."

The agreement is commonly referred to as "The Compact," and the two mayors who signed it -- Richard M. Daley of Chicago and Thomas Barnes of Gary -- originally saw it as a fairly straightforward three-year deal. But it continued, and throughout the years it has often been used as a pawn in the political fights for a third airport in Chicago to counter the proposals to build such an airport in Chicago’s 10th Ward, or -- more recently -- in far-south-suburban Peotone.

"The Compact" was also floated as a possible solution to the closing of Meigs, even before Daley ordered his bulldozers out to dig up Meigs’ runways in the middle of the night in March of 2003.

Now -- 17 years later -- "The Compact" still exists, and the money still flows in from Chicago.

More investigative reporting from NBCChicago

Part of "The Compact" requires Chicago to send monthly checks to the Gary Airport from ticket fees paid by passengers arriving and departing at O’Hare and Midway Airports. Those fees alone amounted to $2.4 million paid to Gary in the past year and a half. This "Passenger Facility Charge" -- or PFC money -- is earmarked for capital projects like Gary’s 1900-foot runway extension, currently under construction, and the relocation of railroad tracks, which must be moved to provide sufficient clearance for larger planes to land on the newly-extended runway.

But on top of the passenger fees, Chicago taxpayers also send money to GCIA, every year, to help with the daily operation of the airport. In the past year and a half, that’s amounted to more than $1.1 million from Chicago taxpayers, over and above the $2.4 million from the ticket fees.

And Gary taxpayers pay millions more, each year, as well.

To date, there hasn’t been much to show for all that money. GCIA has seen commercial service come and go in past years -- notably PanAm, Southeast, and Hooters Air. There have been long periods where no passenger planes landed there. Even Allegiant, with its one flight twice a week, is technically not a commercial flight, but a travel service which operates charter flights to smaller-traffic airports. It just started flying in to Gary last February.

The flight itself appears to be a success, with low-cost tickets and easy online booking that regularly attracts a full load of passengers. But the question remains: Is all this tax money worth it, for just two passenger flights a week?

Karen Freeman-Wilson is Gary’s newly-elected, Harvard-educated mayor, and she has often cited GCIA as one of her top priorities for Gary’s struggling future. She is happy to see the nearly-full passenger loads on the Allegiant flight.

"I think it’s indicative of the demand that is pent up for the Gary airport," she said.

But she acknowledges that -- to date at least -- far less business has been generated than the money that is pumped in.

Also on NBCChicago.com: Butter bust of Obama takes to Chicago streets

"I think a lot has to do with the marketing effort," she said. "I think it’s important to be able to market Gary as a destination -- to market its proximity not just to Chicago but to downtown Chicago."

And once the runway expansion is complete, Freeman-Wilson sees things taking off.

"Ultimately I think there’s an opportunity for commercial and cargo service here," she said.

But the runway expansion has been a difficult and expensive process, primarily because of unforeseen difficulties in moving the railroad tracks, as well as dealing with construction waste and even oil dumped in the runway’s path.

In an effort to see what happens during a typical day at the terminal, NBC Chicago went to the Gary/Chicago International Airport on a Wednesday. There was not an Allegiant flight scheduled for that day, but the thought was that maybe the terminal would be open for other operations.

That was not the case. The front doors were locked and the place was deserted.

So NBC Chicago returned, unannounced, at noon on a Thursday, when Allegiant does fly in. This time the front door was unlocked, but inside the airport was still virtually empty, with the lights turned off, the ticket counter dark and the baggage carousel silent and still.

A plaque on the wall noted that the terminal was renovated a decade ago. It still looks good as new.

The only people there were a security guard and approximately 15 TSA agents. Their supervisor said they are routinely borrowed from other airports -- South Bend and Chicago -- to come to GCIA twice a week to handle the Allegiant flight.

Finally, about an hour and a half before Allegiant’s scheduled arrival, the airport suddenly sprung to life. Crowds of couples and families snaked along the previously-deserted rope lines in front of the ticket counter. Others removed their shoes and loaded up grey plastic bins to go through security. And when the Allegiant flight arrived at about 2:50 p.m., more passengers streamed out into the terminal and outside to waiting cars. The terminal was truly bustling.

But after another hour, the approximately 140 passengers booked for Sanford were boarded, and the plane took off, not to return for three days.

Then the TSA agents packed up. The ticket counter closed down. And it was lights out until Sunday.

Statement from Chicago's Department of Aviation:
The City of Chicago continues to support the Compact as Gary Airport serves as a reliever airport in the regional Chicago airport system.   The City recognizes that these are times of tight budgets and has reduced the annual contribution to the Chicago Gary Regional Airport Authority.

Takeoffs/Landings for area airports from Jan. 1 - Aug. 1, 2012:
Unit 5 looked at the daily air traffic -- including every takeoff and landing of passenger, private, and corporate aircraft -- at Gary/Chicago International Airport, and compared its traffic to that at other comparable airports in the Chicago/Northwest Indiana area.  In our survey of various time periods covering 2012, we found that Gary (GYY) had less daily traffic than Waukegan Regional Airport (UGN), Dupage Airport in West Chicago (DPA), Chicago Executive Airport in Wheeling (PWK), and Chicago Rockford Airport in Rockford (RFD). 

In this chart, every takeoff or landing is counted separately.  For example, if a plane lands at an airport, and then takes off two hours later, it would count twice on this chart. 

One significant exception was August 2012, when GCIA served as the staging area for aircraft used in the Chicago Air and Water Show.

Updated at 1:37 p.m. ET: SOFIA, Bulgaria -- A bombing that killed at least seven people and injured dozens on a bus full of Israeli tourists was most likely a suicide attack, Bulgarian officials said Thursday. The suspected attacker was carrying a fake Michigan driver's license, they added.

Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said the suspect appeared on security camera tape near the bus for nearly an hour before the attack that gutted the airport in Burgas, a popular gateway for tourists visiting the Black Sea coast

"We have established there was a person who was a suicide bomber in this attack (on Wednesday)," Tsvetanov told reporters. "This person had a fake driving license from the United States, from the state of Michigan. He looked like anyone else -- a normal person with Bermuda shorts and a backpack."

Bulgarian media reported Thursday that former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mehdi Ghezali was believed to be the suicide bomber. However, U.S. intelligence officials later denied the reports.

Video footage showed the suspect wearing checked shorts and a blue T-shirt. He appeared to be Caucasian with long dark curly shoulder-length hair under a dark blue baseball cap. 

The bomber was said to be 36 years old and had been in the country for between four and seven days before the attack, Reuters reported.

Officials are still trying to determine how the alleged bomber triggered the explosion. 

"He either had turned with his backpack toward the bus when he exploded it or pretended he was one of the group putting his backpack in the baggage compartment under the bus," according to a Bulgarian official with knowledge of the investigation who spoke with the New York Times.  "Video footage clearly shows him in the airport earlier wandering back and forth, following the group, looking nervous."

Authorities had managed to obtain DNA samples from the fingers of the suspected bomber, Tsvetanov said.

Officials did not release the name that appeared on the fake driver's license. 

Prime Minister Boiko Borisov added: "We worked on this with colleagues from the FBI and CIA. They said that there is no such person in their database."

According to the Associated Press, officials lowered the death toll to seven, including the suspected bomber, after mistakenly reporting that someone had died overnight.

Bulgarian security services had received no indications of a pending attack. However, Israel accused Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants of responsibility.

Iran denied it was behind Wednesday's bombing.

Mangled metal
The tourists had just arrived in Bulgaria on a charter flight from Israel and were on the bus in the airport parking lot when the blast tore through the double-decker. Body parts were strewn across the ground, mangled metal hung from the vehicle's ripped roof and black smoke billowed over the airport.

"It felt like an earthquake and then I saw flying pieces of meat," said Georgi Stoev, an airport official. "It was horrible, just like in a horror movie."

On Thursday, the airport in Burgas -- a city of some 200,000 people at the center of a string of seaside resorts -- remained closed and police prevented people from approaching.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak accused the Tehran-backed Lebanese Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah of carrying out the bombing. "The immediate executors are Hezbollah people, who of course have constant Iranian sponsorship," Barak told Israel Radio.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also said Iran, the Jewish state's arch-enemy, was behind the attack and that "Israel will react powerfully against Iranian terror."

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev linked the arrest of a foreigner in Cyprus earlier this month on suspicion of plotting an attack on Israeli tourists there with the Bulgaria bombing.

"The suspect who was arrested in Cyprus, in his interrogation, revealed an operational plan that is almost identical to what happened in Bulgaria. He is from Hezbollah ... this is a further indication of Hezbollah and Iran's direct responsibility," he told Reuters.

Bangkok blasts wound Iranian attacker, 4 others

The blast occurred on the 18th anniversary of a bomb attack at the headquarters of Argentina's main Jewish organisation that killed 85 people and the Argentine government blamed on Iran, which denied responsibility.

BGNES via AFP - Getty Images

Smoke rises over Burgas airport following a Wednesday's blast.

Israeli officials had previously said that Bulgaria, a popular holiday destination for Israeli tourists, was vulnerable to attack by Islamist militants who could infiltrate via Turkey.

Israeli diplomats have been targeted in several countries in recent months by bombers who Israel said struck on behalf of Iran.

'Inexcusable'
Although Tehran has denied involvement, some analysts believe it is trying to avenge the assassinations of several scientists from its nuclear program that the Iranians have blamed on Israel and its Western allies.

Israel and Western powers fear Iran is working towards a nuclear bomb but it says its uranium enrichment work is strictly for peaceful ends. Both Israel and the United States have not ruled out military action against Iranian nuclear facilities.

"The attack is terrible and inexcusable," said German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. "It is a time to act responsibly. We have no information of our own. We urge caution in starting to assign blame."

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Staff Sgt. Guillermo Tejada lost both legs to an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in 2010. Now rehabilitating in San Diego, Tejada travels regularly to compete in hand-cycling races and marathons.

When flying out of San Diego International Airport, Tejada receives the royal treatment. "They're waiting for us at the curb and take us through the whole process of checking in and going through security," he told msnbc.com. 

Getting through airport security can be stressful on anyone. For wounded military service members, it can be a nightmare.  

The Transportation Security Administration recently expanded a program to make the checkpoint experience for wounded warriors as simple as possible.

“Depending on the airport, the assistance provided can be meeting the passenger curbside when they get to the airport, assisting with checking of bags, getting boarding passes, and assisting through screening,” said TSA spokesperson Nico Melendez.

TSA’s Wounded Warrior Accommodations program is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. While TSA doesn’t directly provide all the services Melendez listed, it will — if alerted — coordinate a wounded warrior’s airport experience with airport staff, USO volunteers and airlines.

Many of the severely injured service members are traveling to or from hospitals and military bases, but many are going home, to a new duty station or on vacation.

The program has been active at a few airports for several years, serving more than 5,000 wounded military personnel traveling through Washington’s Reagan National Airport since 2010, Melendez said. In the past year, 1,500 people have been assisted at San Diego International Airport, according to Cheryl Paine, the TSA official who coordinates the program there.

Pre-check and other expedited, risk-based screening programs for people 75 and older and for those age 12 and under are now in place at most airports, so Melendez said it’s  possible to offer the wounded warrior program nationwide. “If we know who they are and know they are coming through, we can expand the pre-check program and tailor it to their limitations and needs,” he said.

“After a decade of war we have more and more wounded warriors going through airports," he said. "If they don’t know these tools are available it won’t do them any good.”

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By Charles Hadlock
NBC News

DALLAS --  A volunteer program that has welcomed home thousands of U.S. soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan at the Dallas-Fort Worth International airport has come to an end.  The last flight bringing soldiers home for two weeks of rest and recuperation landed Wednesday, greeted by a cheering crowd. 

As the drawdown of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan continues, the military is consolidating future R&R flights to the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, where the general public will not have access to greet returning soldiers.

The end of the flights is bittersweet for Donna Cranston, the volunteer coordinator for DFW’s “Welcome Home a Hero” program.

“These troops are sacrificing and serving for us and I want them to know we are grateful,” said Cranston.  “The other side is, it means we don’t have as many troops that are deployed.  And that’s a good thing.”

Every day for the last nine years, a sort of patriotic flash mob has gathered at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.  Like clockwork, people from all over north Texas arrived at Gate B23 carrying signs, banners, balloons and, of course, American flags.

They stood quietly in a line near baggage claim until they saw the first soldiers emerge from their long plane ride from Iraq or Afghanistan.

Suddenly, the crowd erupted into applause and cheers.  A boom box played John Philip Sousa marching music.  The soldiers, who were still bleary-eyed from a 24-hour flight, seemed pleasantly stunned by it all.

Volunteers have welcomed home soldiers from each of the 2,700 chartered R&R flights since the very first one on Nov. 2, 2003.  The airport estimates that 920,000 soldiers have been personally greeted by volunteers.   The flight arrival times varied day by day and so did the number of volunteers who greeted each flight.  Sometimes there were as few as 30 greeters; sometimes there were more than 300.

Sgt. Hank Slaughter, 47, who returned from Kuwait earlier this month after serving in Iraq, smiled and shook hands with each of the 50 strangers who had come to greet his flight.

“This is great.  This is definitely more than I expected to see,” said Slaughter.

Larry W. Smith / EPA

Tom Downey, 71, who volunteers with the organization 'Welcome Home a Hero' greets a soldier with a rose on March 14, 2012 at the at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. It's the last day soldiers returning home for two weeks of R&R will arrive to this kind of a homecoming now that all future Rest and Recuperation (R&R) flights will be routed through Atlanta where the general public will not have access to greet returning soldiers.

When Slaughter mentioned that he didn’t have a ride to his home, volunteer Pat Brown, 80, offered to take him.  “He’s from Fort Worth and I’m from Fort Worth, so I’m going to take him home,” Brown said, laughing.

Brown has been cheering soldiers at the airport every week for six years.  If she missed a week, she’d make it up by going twice the next week.

“It makes you feel great,” said Brown.  “I feel like it’s a blessing that I live here where it’s happening. They don’t do this anyplace else like this.”

DFW International Airport made it easy for the volunteers, providing them space and free parking each day.

“I’ve never met a more giving people in my life,” Jim Crites, executive vice president of operations at DFW, said of the volunteers.  “What they do is from the heart.  What they’ve given is off the charts.  This is what America is all about.”

Tom Downey, 71, arrived each day at the airport with flowers.  He would hand each female soldier a red or yellow rose.  “Many of these soldiers haven’t smelled flowers in months,” Downey said.  “You have to look at their faces.  There was one colonel who lifted me off my feet she was so surprised.”

Adam Sage came to surprise his fiancé, who was arriving on one of the last flights. Just a few months before, Sage had experienced the same welcome home greeting when he returned from Iraq.

“People just honestly don’t know what it means to all the soldiers who come back, especially single ones who don’t have a lot of family here,” Sage said.  “It means the world to them.”

The Canadian Press via AP, file

Ahmed Ressam in an undated police photo. Ressam's 22-year sentence for plotting to bomb the Los Angeles airport has been rjected twice by a higher court.

Updated at 3:30 p.m. ET: For the second time, a federal appeals court has overturned a prison sentence for Ahmed Ressam, the "Millennium Bomber," ruling Monday that the 22-year sentence he received isn't long enough.

The final sentence for Ressam, 44 — who was convicted in 2000 of trying to bomb Los Angeles International Airport on New Year's Eve 1999 in a plot that also was to involve an attack on the Space Needle in Seattle — has been the focus of a standoff between U.S. District Court in Seattle and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

M. Alex Johnson is a reporter for msnbc.com. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

Ressam's original sentencing was delayed until 2005 while he provided information on terrorist activities to federal authorities. In 2005, District Judge John Coughenour, accusing the federal government of overreaching in its "war on terrorism," sentenced Ressam to 22 years in prison — about a third of the sentence called for in federal guidelines.

In February 2010, a three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled that Coughenour's sentence was too lenient, sending it back to district court with orders that a different judge apply the federal guidelines, which would result in a sentence of 65 years.

But the district court reaffirmed Coughenour's original sentence of 22 years. The tit-for-tat ruling Monday was by the full appeals court, which voted 7-4 to send the case back yet again.

The appeals court acknowledged that its order was unusual, saying Coughenour had wide discretion in passing sentence because of Ressam's cooperation with the U.S. government. But that "does not mean anything goes," appeals Judge Richard R. Clifton wrote Monday in declaring the sentence "substantively unreasonable."

Read the full appeals court ruling (.pdf)

In a dissent, appeals Judge Mary M. Schroeder noted that the federal government has never argued that Coughenour committed any procedural error. In fact, she wrote, it initially asked for a sentence of only 35 years because of Ressam's cooperation and conceded in court that it would accept a sentence of as little as 30 years.

"The 22-year sentence imposed was thus well within the range of alternatives proposed to the district court," Schoeder contended.

Ressam remains in custody in Seattle pending his eventual final sentence.

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MELBOURNE, Fla. -- Officials said three people have died following a single-engine plane crash at Melbourne International Airport.

Federal Aviation Administration reports said the Cirrus SR22 was attempting to land Wednesday evening when it crashed off the end of a runway.

Airport spokeswoman Lori Booker said witnesses who saw the plane nosedive called in the crash.

"We got an eyewitness call that was specific enough that we were able to hone down a specific area in our search," Booker said.

Click here for WESH's video report on the crash

Rescue crews searched the wooded area at the end of the runway for about an hour before they found the wreckage at the southwest part of the airport.

Airport officials said the tail number couldn't immediately be identified.

"We have no identification confirmed at his time. The dissemination of the aircraft upon impact has made it very difficult," Booker said.

The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board were investigating.

NBC station WESH and The Associated Press contributed to this report.