Pilot Threatening to Crash into Tupelo Walmart an Airport Employee, Police Say

A pilot threatening to crash an airplane into a store in Mississippi, is an employee at Tupelo Regional Airport, local media reported police as saying on Saturday, September 3.

In a Facebook post, the Tupelo Police Department said the pilot was threatening to crash the airport into a Walmart store on West Main Street in Tupelo.

The department said it was in direct contact with the pilot, and had worked with the store to evacuate people and disperse them “as much as possible.”

“With the mobility of an airplane of that type the danger zone is much larger than even Tupelo,” the department said, adding that it may be a Beechcraft King Air turboprop aircraft. Data on a flight tracking website showed the plane was a Beech C90A King Air registered to a private owner. The plane departed from Tupelo Regional Airport at 5:33 am local time, landed at 6:31, and left again at 7:45, according to the data.

Video posted to social media by Mary Ellen Rogers showed the aircraft circling.

This is a developing story. Credit: Mary Ellen Rogers via Storyful

Video Transcript

- Yeah. Yeah.