…As The Unexpected Proves Inevitable…

On his second landing, he landed hard, gave it some throttle to avoid the fence, then came down on the road outside the airport. The aircraft was damaged and the boy suffered minor cuts and bruises. Altogether his flight lasted less than half an hour. “It’s a miracle the boy wasn’t killed or someone else wasn’t hurt or killed or that we didn’t have significant property damage from the plane crashing somewhere else,” Fort Payne Mayor Bill Jordan told the Times-Journal. “The last thing you think about is a 14-year-old stealing a plane from the airport.” Airport manager Larry Noble Cowart told The Associated Press, “We’ve never had a problem before with planes being stolen, so I guess we have been a little lax in our security.” The boy was taken to a juvenile detention facility by authorities, charged with stealing the Cessna.