An airport worker with only basic flying skills stole a small airplane and flew it over north Mississippi for five hours Saturday after threatening to crash it into a Walmart, eventually landing in a soybean field where police arrested him.
Cory Wayne Patterson, 29, was uninjured after the rough landing shortly after posting a goodbye message to his parents and sister on Facebook, authorities said at a news conference. The message said he “never actually wanted to hurt anyone."
After an anxious morning of watching the plane's meandering path overhead, Tupelo Mayor Todd Jordan called the resolution “the best case scenario.” No one was injured.
Patterson was employed fueling planes at the Tupelo Regional Airport, giving him access to the Beechcraft King Air C90A, police Chief John Quaka said.
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It was not immediately known why, shortly after 5 a.m., the 10-year Tupelo Aviation employee took off in the fully fueled plane. Fifteen minutes later, Patterson called a Lee County 911 dispatcher to say he planned to crash the plane into a Tupelo Walmart, Quaka said.
Multiple federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, were involved in the investigation and are working to discern a motive.
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