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The pilot with a death-wish

WAUSAU: A man suspected of stealing a plane in Canada and flying erratically across three States of the U.S. was trying to commit suicide, hoping he would be shot down by military fighter planes, it has emerged.

Adam Dylan Leon, 31, was arrested at a store in Ellsinore, Missouri, shortly after landing the single-engine, four-seat Cessna on a rural Missouri road on Monday night, ending a six-hour flight.

A spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation said Leon was a native of Turkey who changed his name from Yavuz Berke and became a Canadian citizen last year.

The plane was tracked as a “flight safety issue” and was not believed to be a terrorist threat, a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defence Command said.

The state trooper who arrested Leon said the pilot told him he had hoped to be shot down. “He made a statement that he was trying to commit suicide and he didn’t have the courage to do it himself. And his idea was to fly the aircraft into the United States, where he would be shot down.”

The trooper said Leon apparently hitched a ride to the store after landing on a highway and taxiing the plane to a side road. He did not appear surprised when the officer entered the store to arrest him.

“He didn’t have any ID, but he was the person we were looking for.”He said Leon “gave me no indication that it was anything other than he was having personal problems and was in an attempt to end his life.”

The aircraft was reported stolen on Monday afternoon from a flight school facility at Thunder Bay International Airport in Ontario. It was intercepted by F-16 fighters from the Wisconsin National Guard after crossing into the State near the Michigan State line.

The pilot was flying erratically and did not communicate with the fighter pilots. The runaway pilot acknowledged seeing the F-16s but did not obey their nonverbal commands to follow them.

The aircraft’s path over Wisconsin prompted a brief, precautionary evacuation of the Wisconsin capitol in Madison, although there were few workers in the building at the time and the Governor was not in town.

The Cessna 172 continued south before landing near Ellsinore, about six hours after the reported theft, and had enough fuel for about eight hours of flight. — AP

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