Plane theft is an exceedingly rare crime. The pool of potential plane thieves isn’t large, with there being fewer than 1 million active pilots in the United States. However, one plane owner has been figuratively struck by lightning twice. A single Cessna 172 was stolen twice over the past week from two general aviation airports in Southern California. The aircraft was found and recovered both times, but law enforcement has yet to identify a suspect in either theft.
It would have been hard to miss Jason Hong’s Cessna 172 at Corona Airport, roughly 18 miles west of Anaheim. The 75-year-old’s plane is painted in distinctive red, orange, yellow and blue stripes. It’s not yet clear how or when the Cessna departed the airport, but Hong contacted the Corona Police Department once he realized the plane was missing, KCAL reports. The single-engine aircraft was found parked at another airport, Brackett Field, 17 miles away.
Small planes are easy to steal if you can get past the fence
Hong realized that the plane’s battery was dead when he went to retrieve it. He told the airport’s manager that he’d come back in a few days with a fully-charged battery. However, the plane went missing again. The Cessna was found at San Gabriel Valley Airport in El Monte, California, roughly 12 miles west of downtown Los Angeles, by the El Monte Police Department. Patrol officers found the plane parked on the tarmac, chained to a bolt. This time, we know the plane was flown to the airport because the facility’s CCTV camera would have seen the aircraft towed through the gates. According to KNBC, an eyewitness saw a woman with the plane at the airport.
While commercial airliners don’t have ignition keys, it’s not a guarantee that small turboprop planes do as well. Small planes often don’t have locks either. The most significant deterrent to private plane theft is the security at the airport when the plane is parked. According to KVVU, a string of plane thefts in 2024, three over six weeks across the entire country, led to an increase in scrutiny over its poor security at general aviation airports. A stolen 1,700-pound single-engine might not pose the same threat as a 65,300-pound twin-engine jet, but it can still be a danger to the public if anyone can just take one for a joyride.
