RIPLEY, Miss.—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.
Cory Wayne Patterson, 29, was uninjured after the rough landing shortly after posting a goodbye message to his parents and sister on Facebook, authorities said at a news conference. The message said he “never actually wanted to hurt anyone.”
After an anxious morning of watching the plane’s meandering path overhead, Tupelo Mayor Todd Jordan called the resolution “the best case scenario.”…