At around 5 a.m. (10 a.m. GMT, 12 p.m. in Brussels), Tupelo police were notified that the pilot of a plane was flying over this city of nearly 38,000 inhabitants, it says on its Facebook page.
“The pilot has contacted the emergency services and is threatening to intentionally crash into a Wal Mart,” the statement said without giving the pilot’s motivations, with whom the police were able to start talking.
Tupelo police also say they worked to evacuate the supermarket and a gas station nearby.
According to flight-tracking site FlightAware, the plane is a Beechcraft King Air 90, a device nearly 11m long and with a wingspan of just over 15m.
The emergency services are on alert in the face of this situation described as “dangerous” by the police, who are asking residents to avoid the area.
“With the mobility of an aircraft of this type, the danger zone is even greater than Tupelo,” she warns.