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John Daley ReportingBarbara Gann, Salt Lake Dept. of Airports: "It's just an odd kind of a crime and we're just trying to get to the bottom of what happened."
Was it a prank, a failed joy-ride, or an attempt to steal a small plane? Airport police are trying to get to the bottom of a mysterious incident this morning, an apparent attempt to steal a plane.
We hear about people hot-wiring cars and taking them for a joyride all the time, but have you ever heard of someone hot-wiring a plane? That's what happened at Airport early today.
A small experimental plane was found where it shouldn't have been, on the side of a runway, with no one inside. Authorities at Salt Lake's Airport in West Jordan converged on the scene this morning, trying to figure out how it got out of the hangar.
Barbara Gann, Spokesperson, Salt Lake City Dept. of Airports: "It was still running, so it looks like someone either tried to take it for a joy ride or maybe attempted to steal it."
An employee doing a routine early morning inspection of an Air Center Salt Lake hangar about 7:00 AM discovered something unusual, a missing two-seater Diamond DA-20 owned by Belfort Aviation in Park City. The plane was found a short time later, but there were no witnesses or surveillance video of the area where the plane was taken.
Barbara Gann: "They do think they tried to take off and were either scared off by something or were just unable to do that."
These days, when it comes to just about any airplane mystery, there's the shadow of 9-11. After hijackers flew jetliners into buildings, there were fears terrorists might try to steal crop dusters and other small planes to try to dump dangerous chemicals or biological material.
The explanation here is very likely nothing sensational, still, no one wants to take any chances and Salt Lake's airport police, West Jordan police, and the FBI are investigating.
Barbara Gann: "It's speculation of course, but yes you'd have to have some sort of aviation orientation to do something like this. It was the equivalent of a car being hot-wired, so you'd have to have fundamental knowledge of the airport, or where the airplanes are stored as well as how to do this to an aircraft."
We called the Air Center Salt Lake to see if anyone there would comment on this morning's incident. They declined our request for an interview. We had no luck tracking down Belfort Aviation in Park City.
