Man sought by authorities for attempting to steal private airplane at Bay Area airport.
Pilot and plane mechanic Jared Ostello says that he was working on planes at the Sonoma County Airport on Sunday morning when his normally calm day took a quick turn for the worse.
Ostello says that he saw a man appear out of nowhere near the runway and jump into the plane “When he shut the door, I saw one light after another come on.” At that point I knew I had to do something with this guy. Ostello said, “I need to get him off of this plane before he wrecks it.”
Ostello says the man who hasn’t been named was only one button away from turning on the plane Ostello tells us that he was able to get the man off the plane quickly.
He says the man then stood there for a second before running down the runway toward a hangar with many other planes. A grand jury has charged the off-duty pilot from the Bay Area with trying to crash an Alaska Airlines plane in the middle of the flight in October.
“I thought, “Oh no!” “I told him to run the other way, but he took off running toward the plane, and I thought, ‘Oh no,'” Ostello said.
The man tried to steal a second plane once he got to the hangar. Ernesto’s boss, Robert Nicolas, owned this one. Ostello, who had been following behind, stopped the man again.
Ostello called the police at the airport, but the man got away before they could arrive. “His eyes were on the clouds.” He made noises and sniffed. Ostello said, “He just stood there for a second and then he ran off.”
A spokesperson for the airport told ABC7 News that they think the suspect got on the property by going through a chain link fence that has been being fixed up for a couple of weeks.
“This was only a short problem.” In two weeks, the fence will be fully improved, so it won’t bother anyone. “We also take regular walks around the property and around the perimeter,” said Jon Stout, Manager of the Sonoma County Airport.
Nicholas says that the airport is not to blame for what happened. Ostello did take steps to avoid a possible disaster, though, which he praises.
“He had the master on and had pushed the gas and throttle forward.” “He probably would have damaged the engine by $300,000 if he had hit the starter,” said Robert Nicholas.
They need help from the public to find and identify the guy, according to the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office. Ostello is just glad that no one got hurt and that he can still fly the planes again. “I just did what I knew I had to do.” He said, “I feel like I did the best thing I could have done.”
