In breaking news, a pilot steals plane in Tupelo Mississippi and threatens to crash it into a Walmart.
The local police received the information at 5 a.m.
“With the mobility of an airplane of that type of the danger zone is much larger than even Tupelo,” police said in a news release earlier Saturday morning.
Leslie Criss, a magazine editor who lives in Tupelo, woke up early and was watching the situation on TV and social media. Several of her friends were outside watching the plane circle overhead.
“I’ve never seen anything like this in this town,” Criss told The Associated Press. “It’s a scary way to wake up on a Saturday morning.”
Former state Rep. Steve Holland, who is a funeral director in Tupelo, said he had received calls from families concerned about the plane.
“One called and said, ‘Oh, my God, do we need to cancel mother’s funeral?’” Holland said. “I just told them, ‘No, life’s going to go on.’”
The airplane drama unfolded during a football game. Tens of thousands of college football fans were headed to north Mississippi for Saturday football games at the University of Mississippi in Oxford and Mississippi State University in Starkville. Tupelo is between those two cities.
Video she shared with CNN shows the small plane largely intact in a field with law enforcement surrounding the pilot.
Associated Press writers Michael Balsamo in New York and Kathleen Foody in Chicago contributed to this report. – Pilot Steals Plane
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