An airport employee who knew how to take off an aircraft but not how to land it stole a plane Saturday and threatened to crash it into a Walmart, circled for five hours over nervous Mississippi townspeople until it landed in a soybean field. , where he was arrested by the police.
Cory Wayne Patterson, 29, made it safely to the rough landing shortly after he posted a farewell message to his parents and sister on Facebook, authorities said at a news conference.
In his text, Patterson asserted that “I never really wanted to hurt anyone.”
After a harrowing morning of watching the plane’s meandering and erratic flight, Tupelo Mayor Todd Jordan said the way the incident ended was “the best of times.” No one was injured.
Patterson worked fueling aircraft at the Tupelo Regional Airport, which gave him access to the Beechcraft King Air C90A twin-engine plane, Police Chief John Quaka said.
At the moment the reasons why the employee took off shortly after 5:00 in the morning with the aircraft that was fully loaded with fuel are still unknown.
Fifteen minutes later, Patterson called Lee County 911 to say he planned to crash the plane into a Walmart in Tupelo, Wuaka said.
The police immediately evicted the people from the establishment as well as those who were in a nearby self-service store.
“It is very likely that it is a crime of opportunity,” Quaka said, adding that the airport tower staff start work at 6:00 in the morning.
Police negotiators managed to contact Patterson during the flight to convince him to land, but he told them he didn’t know how.
Then a private pilot began directing it to land and was about to do so at the Tupelo airport, but canceled the attempt at the last minute and resumed the flight, authorities said.
A negotiator reestablished communication around 10 a.m. and learned that Patterson had landed safely in a farm field, Quaka said.
The plane came down near Ripley, Mississippi, about 85 miles (140 kilometers) southeast of Memphis, Tennessee, and about 45 miles (70 kilometers) northwest of Tupelo.