CONVICT’S ESCAPADE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26636, 5 December 1947, Page 5

CONVICT’S ESCAPADE

PRIVATE PLANE STOLEN Rec. 8 p.m. NEW YORK, Dec. 3. A 24-year-old convict, Charles Mclntosh, who never had a flying lesson, is believed to have stolen a private two-seater plane from the airport at Springfield, Missouri, to-day. Mclntosh and four fellow convicts, all labelled as potentially dangerous mental patients, escaped from a Federal medical centre on Monday night. Three terrorised a farm family with a home-made knife and fled with guns, clothing, money, and car. No trace has been found of the other two, but officials feel certain that Mclntosh was the plane thief. He stole a plane in Indiana while absent without leave from the army in 1942 and successfully flew it to many parts of the country before abandoning it The plane to-day was being warmed up at the airfield. The thief, in a few minutes, streaked off without using the runway and flew eastward. The aircraft had enough petrol for 300 miles flying. A later message stated that Mclntosh was recaptured at Jackson, Tennessee. 'Sheriff Lewis reported that Mclntosh was arrested at the local airport while trying to steal another plane after crash-landing the one he had taken from Missouri. Mclntosh said he was forced to land when the plane ran out of petrol. He hitch-hiked to the local, airport, where he was recaptured. He ran out of petrol earlier over Kentucky, but obtained 10 gallons of tractor fuel from a farmer and took off again.