Page 8 - Dwayne Patterson News Today

TUPELO • The man accused of stealing a million-dollar plane Saturday morning and threatening to crash it into a Walmart has been denied bond.

Negotiators were able to get in touch with him and were able to get a pilot to talk to patterson on the phone. at one point they tried to steer the plane back to the tupelo regional airport and get cory wayne patterson to effect a landing there. they said that he was within 100 feet of making a successful landing, that is a very small distance, then essentially went back around, flew off to the northwest, over a national forest. they lost contact with him, the police did, via phone. and then the...

Muntean, he is coming back in this conversation because you have learned some new details. can you tell me what you can about what you learned about this -- the person piloting this plane? >> reporter: we were able to see on faa records that cory wayne patterson had a student pilot certificate. at some time he was trying to learn to fly. that was pretty easy to figure out. i want to balance this out a little, the general aviation world, the smaller airports, im a bit biased because im a member a...

The Tupelo Police Department said Cory Wayne Patterson faces charges of grand larceny and terroristic threats.

RIPLEY, Miss. (AP) — An airport worker who knew how to take off but not land stole a small airplane Saturday and threatened to crash it into a Walmart, circling for five hours over unnerved Mississippians before ending the flight safely in a soybean field where police arrested him.

Community is really lacking in security. after 9/11 there was a wholesale redo of that. and now there is a 1-800 number were pilots can call and say, hey, ive seen something suspicious. and in a way, those always get filtered through the federal authorities to make sure there is no possible gap at many other small airports across the country. there are a few thousand of them in the u.s. so to vilify small airports is maybe a bit unfair, only because so many of these gaps have been closed, especi...

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Cory wayne patterson, we know, had access to those planes because he worked there as an employee of tupelo aviation. this may change the trajectory of what security measures are in place, because this was someone who was given access because he worked there. is there something that could have potentially stopped him from doing this? >> probably not. i mean, look, insider threat is always a concern, whether its cybersecurity or aviation security. there is all sorts of background reviews and asses...

Anyone else. and i believe that we had what you would think would be the best case scenario. >> it was the best case scenario, because nobody was injured. cnns peteman team and nadia romero joins us now live, thank you both for joining me. pete, first to you, what more have we learned? there were quite a few details in that press conference. >> reporter: the tupelo mayor said something so interesting, that cory wayne patterson, the person piloting the plane, apparently changed his mind. he wante...

In a civilized society, we dont take small airplanes and threaten walmarts or cities. this is not just what mary was saying in terms of his access and accessibility, but yes, he survived, and now he suffers the consequences for putting an entire jurisdiction at risk like this. so get him the help he needs, there are issues around him, but if you dont put the hammer down on this, every person who wants to make a point is going to start taking planes. he will be investigated, there will be a feder...