A 29-year-old man, Corey Wayne Patterson, threatened to crash a plane at a Walmart supermarket in Tupelo, Mississippi. After convincing him to land, the police arrested him and charged him with aggravated theft and terrorist threats.
Patterson, a Tupelo airline employee, stole a twin-engine Beechcraft King Air 90 at 5 a.m. Saturday, when Tupelo Airport was still closed. According to the previous rebuildAt 5:23 p.m., he called 911 to report that he was going to crash into the plane at a Walmart supermarket in Tupelo. At 9.30, the man posted a farewell message on Facebook. “I apologize to everyone. I never wanted to hurt anyone. I love my parents and my sister, it’s not their fault. Farewell, Patterson wrote.
As evidenced by the plane’s path discovered by the site FlyTaradarPatterson began to fly concentrated over the city. After this threat, the city police department warned residents of the danger and evacuated a nearby Walmart supermarket and convenience store.
The man threatening to crash his plane at Walmart in Tupelo, MS is the #1 most tracked plane on Flight Radar right now. #tupelo # Walmart pic.twitter.com/hW2mM2D9M2
– Real Phil Jones (@SomeGuyFromNC) September 3, 2022
During the nearly five-hour flight, a police negotiator called Patterson to persuade him to land. It took the intervention of another pilot to guide him, because Patterson did not know how to bring the plane back to Earth. Finally, he managed to land in a soybean field near the town of Ripley, also in Mississippi, just over 70 kilometers from Tupelo. It remains unclear why Patterson stole the plane and threatened to crash. The case is also being handled by the FBI, the investigative agency of the US Federal Police.
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