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Deputies: Teens leave group home, steal small plane
Investigators said boys took flight in stolen airplane

Local News

Deputies: Teens leave group home, steal small plane
Two teenage boys were arrested near the Vernal Regional Airport after landing a small plane they had stolen from a private airstrip in Jensen, Uintah County, according to investigators. Photo: Uintah County Sheriff's Office Photo: Uintah County Sheriff's Office Copyright 2018 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
By: SIMONE FRANCIS
Posted: Nov 22, 2018 02:48 PM MST
Updated: Nov 22, 2018 03:01 PM MST

UINTAH COUNTY (ABC4 News) – Two teenage boys were arrested on Thanksgiving after Uintah County Sheriff’s Office said they stole a small plane.

Deputies said the boys, ages 14 and 15, left a group home on the Wasatch Front earlier this week. The teenagers made their way to eastern Utah and had been staying with friends in the Jensen area.

Thursday morning, deputies said, the teens gained access to a tractor and drove it to the airstrip in Jensen where they stole a single-engine plane.

Deputies said the boys, ages 14 and 15, left a group home on the Wasatch Front earlier this week. The teenagers made their way to eastern Utah and had been staying with friends in the Jensen area.

Thursday morning, deputies said, the teens gained access to a tractor and drove it to the airstrip in Jensen where they stole a single-engine plane.

photo

Two teenage boys were arrested near the Vernal Regional Airport after landing a small plane they had stolen from a private airstrip in Jensen, Uintah County, according to investigators.

Based on information obtained by investigators, the teens mentioned flying back towards the Wasatch Front, but decided not to and returned to Vernal where they landed at the airport and where eventually arrested.

Both teens are being held in the Split Mountain Youth Detention Center in Vernal on multiple charges. The investigation into this incident is ongoing.

I can't imagine flying and landing a plane is a simple thing to do.

It isn’t that complicated, but the consequences of screwing up can be severe.

quote:

Originally posted by slosig:
It isn’t that complicated, but the consequences of screwing up can be severe.

And rather final.

If they played with any type of flight simulator before, they may know the basics.
Is there video?
Not to knock the safety of the situation....But...
Can you imagine if they nailed a few touch and goes like butter, before making a full stop? And if there was video? We are talking YouTube stars.

"Group home"?

flashguy

quote:

Originally posted by flashguy:
"Group home"?

flashguy

In my experience /understanding group home = troubled kids/ juvenile delinquents. A halfway home where kids who are troubled are placed and receiving counselling.

quote:

Originally posted by JSB3:
If they played with any type of flight simulator before, they may know the basics....

Hey, if that guy could loop the Q400 out of Seattle, these kids could manage a simple plane. I don't recognize the plane, it could be a light sport aircraft (LSA). It probably flies about the same as the Cessna 152 I fly. Big difference: I learned with an instructor next to me!

I'm guessing they used their spare time at the group home on a PC learning the basics of flying and were VERY lucky.

quote:

Originally posted by Sigmund:

quote:

Originally posted by JSB3:
If they played with any type of flight simulator before, they may know the basics....

Hey, if that guy could loop the Q400 out of Seattle, these kids could manage a simple plane. I don't recognize the plane, it could be a light sport aircraft (LSA). It probably flies about the same as the Cessna 152 I fly. Big difference: I had an instructor next to me!

I'm guessing they used their spare time at the group home to learn the basics of flying and were VERY lucky.

That's about how I read the situation also. Not much in the picture to go by but it appears to be a LSA kit plane with fixed gear and possibly a fixed pitch prop.

Assuming they don't know stall speeds, how to use mixture control, carb heat application, or flap useage, or if they even checked to see if it had oil, sufficient fuel, or if they sumped the tank(s), they were indeed lucky.

I'm curious to know how they even got it started, unless the keys were left in it...of course they also managed to get a tractor started to steal that to get to the plane to steal...we can only wonder what would have happened if there was a train or tractor trailer nearby.

...not too difficult to take off in a simple a/c, but a lot can go wrong when the basics are ignored...

...but hey, at least they were smart enough to navigate by IFR.

That part of the country is all mountains, no horizon.

quote:

Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:

Not much in the picture to go by but it appears to be a LSA kit plane with fixed gear and possibly a fixed pitch prop.

Agree, the photo does not show a lot. It does appear to be an LSA. Not necessarily kit-built, there are many LSAs that are factory built.

As far as fixed pitch prop, LSA regs require that the prop not be adjustable in flight. It must be either fixed pitch, or adjustable on the ground (think in terms of adjusting the pitch while the engine is NOT running). I just did my every-two-years Flight Instructor renewal; there was a section in the renewal course dealing with regulations, definitions, etc., for LSA.

Some tractors aren’t real hard to steal. My Kubota uses the same key as my SIL’s tractor. As a kid I worked on a construction job where we used a flattened nail for a key to start the Bobcat on the job site. I bet that would work on our Ford 4000, too. So you don’t have to be a criminal mastermind to swipe a tractor.

Flight simulators can't prepare you for the kinesthetic sensations. I'm amazed they survived.

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:
That part of the country is all mountains, no horizon.

Ummmm....

Yeah.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:
That part of the country is all mountains, no horizon.

Ummmm....

Yeah.

It's a significant detail. It's not like taking an airplane in flat land.

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:
Flight simulators can't prepare you for the kinesthetic sensations.

They really can, and do; so much so and so realistically that in most cases those obtaining a type rating have never set foot in the cockpit before.

The little computer games aren't simulators. They're games.

It's not necessary to have a feel-experience to learn to fly an airplane, however, as we've seen by the theft of the Dash 8.

Pretty impressive really ... do we know if they had prior experience ?

MDS

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:
I can't imagine flying and landing a plane is a simple thing to do.

Among the reoccurring dreams of finding myself walking down a busy street naked or running lost in an apocalypse of the year 3030, I've found myself in a cockpit on final approach. Flight controls seem counterintuitive in the dreams. Although I could probably make it down in a Cessna 172 if I started with enough altitude. Over, say, Prescott AZ.

Getting it off the ground and back safely is one thing. As said there’s more to it. Picking an aircraft that was fueled and not pre-flight checked that would make the trip was luck.

Maybe a well-meaning adult took one of them up for an intro ride in a similar plane and they paid close attention. Or one of them took the AOPA "pinch hitter" course:

This course is designed for nonpilots who occasionally fly in light aircraft. Intended to help flying companions become more comfortable in the cockpit, it includes an introduction to the principles of flight, a basic overview of instruments and radio communication, and tips on what to do in the unlikely event of pilot incapacitation.

https://www.aopa.org/training-...courses/pinch-hitter

https://flash.aopa.org/asf/pinch_hitter/noflash.htm