Thread: Stolen plane flown from Canada to Missouri; Air Force trails Cessna; Pilot Adam Leon

They should have shot him down, it would have made for talk here but they need to set an example.
Stolen plane flown from Canada to Missouri; Air Force trails Cessna; Pilot Adam Leon suicidal
BY LEO STANDORA
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Updated Tuesday, April 7th 2009, 8:54 AM

The pilot of a plane stolen in Canada flew into U.S. air space and crossed over three states with fighter jets in hot pursuit before landing in a small Missouri town Monday.

Authorities said Adam Leon, 31, a native of Turkey who became a Canadian citizen last year, ran away from the plane but was tracked down after a brief manhunt and arrested in a grocery store near Ellsinore in the southeastern part of the state.

"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," Missouri State Trooper Justin Watson said Tuesday on ABC's "Good Morning America.”

A spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said Leon boosted a small Cessna 172 aircraft from from a flight school in Ontario about 3 p.m. and flew "erratically" over Lake Superior to the U.S. at altitudes of 14,000 to 3,000 feet. F-16 fighter jets intercepted him near Michigan's Upper Peninsula border with Wisconsin, but he failed to respond to radio calls and other signals.

The plane's flight over Wisconsin prompted an evacuation of the state capitol in Madison, though the building was nearly empty and the governor was out of town, the Associated Press reported. Leon continued his flight over Illinois before landing in Missouri – about 120-miles south of St. Louis.

With wire services

He would have succeeded if he had headed toward DC or New York, I mean who cares about the Midwest right? Honestly tell me he wouldn't have been shot down right away if he had aimed East...... anywhere past Ohio and BOOF nothing but silver aluminum confetti sprinkling down over green fields......