Mississippi authorities say they have lifted a state of alert following a man who allegedly stole a small plane and circled it Saturday, threatening to crash it, landed and was arrested.
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves tweeted that “the situation has been resolved and no one was injured.” He thanked the law enforcement agencies that helped bring the pilot down. The plane began circling over Tupelo, Mississippi, around 5 am and was in the air for more than five hours, circling over Tupelo and another nearby community.
Benton County Sheriff’s Dispatcher Connie Strickland said the aircraft landed and the pilot was in police custody.
Hours earlier, the Tupelo Police Department reported on its Facebook page that the local Walmart store and a nearby convenience store had been evacuated as a precaution.
Authorities believe the plane — a Beechcraft King Air C90A — was stolen and were working to determine if the pilot who threatened to crash it is an employee of a local airport, two people briefed on the matter told The Associated Press.
Multiple federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, were involved in the investigation and are working to discern the individual’s motive.
