By Bill Vidonic, Times Staff 11/08/2002 CHIPPEWA TWP. - A Patterson Township woman faces charges of drunken driving after driving her pickup down the runway of the Beaver County Airport on Tuesday afternoon. Peggy A. Adams, 39, of 1720 Fox Ave., had a blood-alcohol level of 0.225 percent, the Beaver County Sheriff's Department said, more than twice the legal limit for driving in Pennsylvania. Adams said Thursday that she had been celebrating a successful job interview with drinks at Sal's Ristorante and Bar on Darlington Road around 3 p.m. Tuesday. When she left the bar, Adams said, she should have turned right to get to Route 51, but instead turned left, and into the county airport. Dazed from the alcohol and unfamiliar with the Chippewa Township airport, she said she was not sure how she ended up on the runway. "Being on the runway didn't seem to faze me," Adams said. "I was disoriented and I had too much to drink." Beaver County Sheriff's Cmdr. Robert Vizyak said Thursday that there are open areas around the airport in which a motorist can gain access to the runway. Vizyak said that Adams drove on the runway only briefly before she left airport property, and was never near any planes. Controllers in the airport tower saw Adams, Vizyak said, and immediately radioed a couple of approaching planes to warn them of the situation, but they were permitted to land once Adams drove away. Adams said she doesn't remember driving off the runway, only that after being on the runway, she next remembers being surrounded by Chippewa Township police and Beaver County deputy sheriffs at Cessna Drive and Piper Street. Charges had not been filed at District Justice C. Douglas Loughner's office as of Thursday afternoon, but Vizyak said they would be filed as soon as the arresting officer completes the paperwork. Vizyak said Adams faces charges of drunken driving, careless driving and trespassing. This is Adams' second drunken-driving arrest within a year. In December, state police stopped Adams while she was driving on the Beaver Valley Expressway in Hopewell Township. According to court records, she had a blood-alcohol level of 0.277 percent. Adams was admitted to Beaver County's Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program in February, was given a sentence of 18 months' probation and was ordered to give up her license for 30 days. Adams said the interview she was celebrating Tuesday landed her a job at the Wellness Center at the YMCA in Rochester Township, beginning next week. Adams said she is hoping to begin an alcohol treatment program. "I don't know what's all going to happen with this," Adams said.
