Pilot of stolen Canadian plane in custody in Missouri

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Pilot of stolen Canadian plane in custody in Missouri

The man suspected of stealing a plane from a Canadian airport then flying it

into the U.S., triggering a bizarre aerial pursuit by American fighter jets, has

been arrested.

Adam Dylan Leon, 31, was captured Monday night near the stretch of rural road in

Missouri where he landed the single-engine four-seater Cessna 172 after a

six-hour flight over three states.

The plane was taken from the airport in Thunder Bay, Ont., at about 2:30 p.m.

Monday, according to Mike Kucharek, spokesperson for North American Aerospace

Defence Command in Colorado.

According to reports, the keys were already in the aircraft.

Kucharek told The Associated Press the plane was flying erratically when it was

intercepted at the Michigan-Wisconsin border by pilots from the Wisconsin Air

National Guard that were deployed by NORAD.

The pilot did not communicate by radio with the fighter pilots, nor did he obey

their non-verbal commands to follow them.

Eventually, the pilot landed the plane on a highway in southeastern Missouri at

Ellsinore, and taxied to a side road.

He is then believed to have hitched a ride to a nearby convenience store where

he remained until police came into the location to arrest him.

When police arrived to arrest Leon, he told them he had no identification, but

that he was the person they were looking for. He was reportedly sipping Gatorade

and waiting to be arrested.

The plane was stolen from Confederation College Flight School at Thunder Bay

International Airport.

CTV's aviation expert Mark said air-traffic controllers would have known

immediately that something was amiss.

" Don't kid yourself, Thunder Bay is not a Mickey Mouse airport. There are

scheduled flights in and out of there. It's a secure airport, and it's a

relatively busy place, so as soon as that guy got in the airplane and started

taxiing everyone would have been alerted, " told Canada AM.

Pilots flying into U.S. airspace are required to land at the closest airport

that has a customs office. When the pilot failed to do that, likely at Duluth,

Minn., authorities would have been alerted immediately, said.

The biggest question, said, is why the keys would have been left in the

plane -- an almost unheard of practice, he said.

" Certainly in all the flying I've ever done, whether with flight colleges or

renting airplanes, I've never seen keys left in airplanes, and that will be the

big question, why were the keys left in that airplane.

Was it an accident? But it's clearly to me a lapse in security, " he said.

Missouri State Trooper was one of the officers who arrested Leon.

He told ABC's Good Morning America that Leon told him he had hoped to be shot

down.

" He made a statement that he was trying to commit suicide and he didn't have the

courage to do it himself. And his idea was to fly the aircraft into the United

States, where he would be shot down, " said.

Madison, the Wisconsin state capitol, was evacuated briefly over fears of an

attempt to attack the state legislature.

Leon is believed to be a former Turkish national who became a Canadian citizen

last year and changed his name from Yavuz Berke.

Maj. , of NORAD, said Canadian air navigation authorities first

notified the air defence group that a plane had been stolen.

The organization then began tracking the plane, and eventually decided to

scramble the fighters to get a closer look at the unresponsive plane.

Once it landed, the NORAD pilots returned to their home base and police moved

in.