‘Student’ Pilot Takes Plane at Gunpoint

A man who posed as a student pilot and stole a plane at gunpoint may have burglarized an Oklahoma airport later in the day after taking on fuel, investigators said Monday.

The thief and the aircraft remained missing Monday, authorities said.

Sunday afternoon, a man walked into Dakota Ridge Aviation Inc. in Boulder and asked for a $60-an-hour introductory flight lesson. He said his name was Fred Ward and that he had 4,500 hours of flying experience, authorities said.

Flight instructor Lisa Beadling took him up in a single-engine 1978 Piper Warrior when he asked her to stop at Tri-County Airport in Erie to pick up a package.

There was no package, authorities said. And when Beadling returned to the plane and taxied down a runway for takeoff, the man produced a gun, Beadling said Monday.

“He pulled out a gun and held it like this and said: ‘You’d better get out of the airplane,’ ” Beadling said. “I was scared and said: ‘Can I take my stuff?’ and he said: ‘Yeah, take everything that’s yours and get out.’ ”

The plane’s fuel tank was full, giving it a flying range of 450 miles or more. Beadling and Tri-County officials last saw the aircraft headed east.

The plane landed Sunday evening at Woodward Airport in northwestern Oklahoma, airport manager Dave Brown said.

Brown said he put 41 gallons of gasoline in the plane, for which the pilot paid $76 in cash. The man said he was headed for Houston.

Brown watched the plane take off and went home. When he returned to the airport Monday, he found the building had been broken into and $331 in cash and more than $500 in credit card slips taken from a locked file cabinet.

Also missing was his rifle, said Brown, who thinks the same pilot returned to commit the theft.

Denver FBI spokesman Dick Schussler said FBI agents in Oklahoma were investigating the airport theft. Meanwhile, Beadling said, Denver FBI agents showed her a mug shot of a man she identified as the one who took the plane.

Authorities have not disclosed the man’s identity.

“This all is kind of new for us,” said Tri-County Airport manager Tom Pierce. “We usually don’t have hijackings at our little airport.”

Schussler said hijacking was a misnomer because no hostages were taken. The FBI called it a case of moving a stolen plane across a state line, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.