Stolen plane

[classicman]

WASHINGTON (CNN) --

The pilot of a small Cessna 172 aircraft reported stolen from a Canadian flight school landed near a Missouri highway late Monday and took off on foot, federal officials confirmed.
The plane, intercepted and tracked by U.S. military aircraft as it flew across the Midwest, landed on a dirt road off Highway 60, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman said. The pilot then fled on foot.

The plane landed in the town of Ellsinore, population 360, in southern Missouri, a dispatcher with the Carter County Sheriff's Office said.

A spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said that about 9:20 p.m. ET, the Cessna was flying over southern Missouri, some 20 miles from the Arkansas border, "holding steady" at 3,000 feet -- down from the earlier altitude of 14,000 feet.

The NORAD spokesman, Mike Kucharek, said military pilots who intercepted the Cessna had tried repeatedly to get the pilot's attention and at one point, the pilot appeared to acknowledge that he saw the other aircraft.

"He looked at them," Kucharek said.

But the pilot had not communicated with NORAD or the Federal Aviation Administration, Kucharek added later in the evening. At 9:20 p.m., the pilot was believed to have had roughly 30 minutes of fuel left, Kucharek said.

Officials were "allowing this pilot to play his hand" because they "don't want to provoke the situation," Kucharek said.

A federal law enforcement official told CNN the pilot is a naturalized Canadian citizen, but declined to give his name or country of origin. The source said the pilot was a flight school student for a "brief" period and only clocked a few hours of flight time.

Canadian officials have received some information that the pilot is "not a happy individual," the official said.

The Cessna departed at about 3 p.m. ET and flew over Lake Superior less than half an hour later, according to NORAD officials. F-16 fighter jets intercepted the pilot near Michigan's upper peninsula border with Wisconsin at 4:43 p.m., and have tracked the Cessna since.

By evening, the Wisconsin National Guard deployed two F-16s of its own in an attempt to get the pilot to establish communications with FAA air traffic controllers.

The state capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, was evacuated for less than an hour as a precaution.

FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said the plane was reportedly stolen from a flight school in Thunder Bay, Canada, and the pilot had been identified as a student at the flight school.

It was only a Cessna, but still this guy took it for a seven hour ride with F-16's following him most of the time. Couldn't they have just forced him down? Was this perhaps a test to see what our response was to this type of aircraft? Should I get another ?

[TheMercenary]

Damm Canadian's just want our Hollywood Movies.

[Apollo]

They found him, waiting to be arrested, while sipping on Gatorade.

Product placement?

[tw]

The whole story was one step above a complete non-event. But proof to extremists that enemies are hiding everywhere to kill us all. No wonder one wasted so much time and bandwidth on a trivial law enforcement story. Someone who may have been hoping to commit suicide; but could not do it himself. After eight hours, nobody would shoot him down. So he landed. A non-event that would have been only one paragraph if not posted by an extremist chock full of fear.

[classicman]

Gee really? An airplane flown by a complete unknown violates, yes violates our airspace headed where to do what? Thats reality not extremist fear.

[TheMercenary]

We want their beer, maybe we could barter.

[ZenGum]

Reminds me a little of Mathias Rust, the young German chap who flew a hired Cessna via Finland to Moscow in 1987.

[Trilby]

I feel sorry for the guy. That's pretty extreme thinking. sheesh.

[tw]

Originally Posted by classicman

An airplane flown by a complete unknown violates, yes violates our airspace headed where to do what?

Cessnas, like cars, routinely cross back and forth across the US Canadian border. The only difference here is someone stole it. Maybe some evil Cannuck will steal a car and blow up your house! Nation disaster. Call for construction of more nuclear bombs!

Wacko gets his penis excited because someone stole a Cessna. We should all feel so violated.

[lookout123]

Hey, you left out what was previously posted by pro-american posters...70HP/L...7minutes...Where's Obama...

There you go.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by tw

Studly man gets his penis excited because someone stole a Cessna. We should all feel so violated.

OK, so this is how you wanna play tommy boy?
At least I have a penis. You couldn't get violated in your dreams.
Oh and I haven't forgotten:

Original LIE Posted by tw:

Responsible bonuses. Nobody gets them until four to ten years later when the spread sheets actually report an employee’s real achievements.

Cite an example of that please. What industry has employees wait up to a decade for their pay?

Another LIE Posted by tw

According to classicman – retention bonuses because he (Wagoner)was doing so much good for GM.

False. Please CITE ONE TIME where I said anything about Wagoner deserving bonuses - Post anything to corroborate another of tw's blatant LIES. If not post an public apology and a correction on the board. I have put up with tw and tw's attacks for too long. It stops now. Eitherback it up or STFU.

[dar512]

I dunno. I lean more toward Classic's point than not.

We don't know that the guy is harmless. Updates to the story on CNN reveal the guy is Turkish and unhappy. That's not "case closed", but it's concern-worthy.

There's some pretty nasty technology out there. They didn't find him in the plane, so he could have dropped off or hidden something nasty - bio-weapons, radioactive dust, etc.

[classicman]

Could have been anything. Nor did we know what the intentions of the pilot were. Were there any other people on board? Did he fill the thing with explosives... Why did they evacuate? Perhaps because some other friggin psychos flew planes into buildings. Oh wait, that must have been an irrational concern too.
There are a million reasons, sound reasons to be concerned.... Unless your tells you otherwise.

[Queen of the Ryche]

Sorry TW, call me paranoid, but if someone "unhappy" steals a plane and doesn't contact the FAA, lets fighter jets follow him and jus smiles and waves, lands the thing on U S soil then takes off on foot, damn straight I'm going to be suspicious, and not treat it on the same level as driving a stolen car across the border, as you say happens sooo often :proof?cough:

[Undertoad]

1. Turks are not generally radicalized.

2. Even if nothing happened, it can still have terrorist purposes: a legitimate dry-run sort of "test" of national security and what is possible.

2a. The event actually serves that purpose no matter what the gentleman's intentions were.