Man’s Small Plane Keeps Getting Stolen and Returned — and the Mysterious Thief Even Replaced the Battery

NEED TO KNOW

• Someone repeatedly stole a California man’s aircraft — and also changed the battery

• Jason Hong, 75, went to go to his aircraft at the Corona Municipal Airport on July 28 to discover it mysteriously gone

• The aircraft has since disappeared and then reappeared at a number of local airports, mystifying Hong and authorities alike

A California man’s small aircraft has been stolen a number of instances — and the thief seemingly repaired it.

Yorba Linda resident Jason Hong was celebrating his seventy fifth birthday on July 28 when he determined to pay a go to to his aircraft, a 1958 Cessna Skyhawk, which he retains at the Corona Municipal Airport, per the Los Angeles Times. 

However, he was met with an disagreeable shock upon arriving at the airport: the aircraft was gone.

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Hong reported the aircraft lacking to the Corona Police Department, pondering that he could very nicely never see it again.

However, Hong told the outlet that he then acquired a call from the La Verne Police on July 29 informing him that they’d discovered his aircraft parked at the Brackett Field Airport, which is about 23 miles northeast of Corona.

Bewildered, Hong determined to take the aircraft’s battery out with the intention of coming back the following weekend to correctly examine the vehicle. He told the L.A. Times that he figured no battery meant no one may steal it.

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However, when he returned on Sunday, Aug. 3, the aircraft was again gone.

He soon obtained a call from El Monte Police, who told him his aircraft was sitting at San Gabriel Valley Airport — which is about 18 miles west of where he had left it. Stranger still, whoever had stolen the aircraft had changed the battery, which might have value them a whole bunch of {dollars}.

Hong regarded up his aircraft on the monitoring web site Flight Aware and was ready to verify that it had been in the air a number of instances in July.

Hong — who has since chained his aircraft at San Gabriel Valley Airport as he waits to examine it — told the L.A. Times that he’s still making an attempt to make sense of what occurred.

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“Someone breaks into your house, they’re looking for jewelry or cash, right?” he said. “But in this case, what’s the purpose? It’s like someone breaks my window, and then they put a new one up.”

Hong also said that he causes whoever has been stealing his aircraft must have flight training — because “landing is not easy” — as nicely as information of aircraft mechanics, because they knew what sort of battery the aircraft needed and have been also ready to set up it.

So far, the only potential clue comes from a common at the San Gabriel Valley Airport who told Hong that he noticed a petite, middle-aged girl sitting in the cockpit on a number of events. The man said that the incident stood out because he questioned why the girl would choose to sit in the aircraft on a scorching day instead of in the air-conditioned airport.

Authorities also stay mystified.

“This plane just keeps disappearing out of the blue,” Sgt. Robert Montanez of the Corona Police Department told the L.A. Times. “It’s just weird.”

He added, “There’s no camera video, there’s no real leads as to who stole the plane.”

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