They arrest the pilot who threatened to crash a small plane in a Walmart

() — A Tupelo Aviation employee allegedly stole a twin-engine plane Saturday morning and threatened to crash into a local Walmart before finally landing uninjured in a field, Tupelo Police Chief John Quaka said at a news conference Saturday. Saturday afternoon.

Quaka identified the man piloting the plane as Cory Wayne Patterson of Shannon, Mississippi.

Patterson is in custody and has been charged with grand theft and terroristic threats, police said. Quaka said he expects federal charges to be filed “in the near future.”

Patterson worked at Tupelo Aviation for 10 years as a signalman refueling planes, Quaka said. The Tupelo police chief said Patterson has an “undetermined amount of flight instruction.”

Quaka said the plane was full of fuel Friday night before Patterson took off Saturday at 5:08 a.m.

According to Quaka, negotiators contacted Patterson and were able to talk him out of carrying out the Walmart attack.

The erratic flight path of the plane circling over northern Mississippi.

Quaka said negotiators, with the help of a private pilot, tried to guide Patterson to land the plane at Tupelo Regional Airport. Patterson changed course on final approach, heading away from Tupelo, Quaka said.

Police said Patterson posted a “goodbye” message on his Facebook page from the plane at 9:32 a.m.

“I’m sorry everyone. I never really wanted to hurt anyone. I love my parents and my sister, this is not their fault. Bye,” Patterson wrote in the post. Her account now appears to be disabled or deleted.

At 10:08 a.m., officials lost radar contact with the aircraft, Quaka said.

At 10:10 a.m., negotiators reestablished connection with Patterson, who confirmed that he landed in a field and was not injured.

The plane is intact, but suffered some damage during landing, according to police.

Patterson was being transported to the sheriff’s department at the time of the news conference.

Tupelo Mayor Todd Jordan described the outcome of the incident as “the best case scenario”.

contacted Tupelo Aviation on Saturday after threatening to crash stolen plane at Mississippi Walmart

The threat to a Walmart

Tupelo police were notified at 5:00 am local time, when the pilot contacted 911 and issued the threat.

“With the mobility of such an aircraft, the danger zone is much larger even than Tupelo,” police said in a news release Saturday morning.

The plane, a Beechcraft King Air 90, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA, for its acronym in English), was stolen, a source told .

The pilot was the only person on board when the plane touched down several miles northwest of Ripley Airport, the FAA said in a statement.

“The pilot departed Tupelo Regional Airport in Tupelo, Mississippi, this morning and circled around the area,” the FAA said in a statement. The FAA says it is investigating the incident.

Roxanne Ward, 42, told the plane landed behind the Gravestown Fire Department near her home around 10:20 a.m.

“He landed pretty hard,” he said.

(Courtesy Roxanne Ward)

The video he shared with shows the small plane largely intact in a field with police surrounding the pilot.

Ward heard the plane coming and ran to his father-in-law’s house to hide in the basement, he said. “That’s when we heard the bang noise.”

Around 8:30 a.m. local time, the plane was north of Tupelo, police said in an earlier update.

The Tupelo Walmart store is “currently closed and evacuated,” Charles Crowson, director of Walmart’s press office, told earlier while the plane was in the air.

“We are working closely with local investigators and are referring questions to law enforcement,” he added.

The FAA “is aware of and coordinating with local law enforcement,” the agency says in an email to on Saturday morning.

The FBI field office in Jackson, Mississippi, is involved in the incident response, a spokesman said.

This is a developing story.