Local

High-dollar heist: Thief steals $40K in equipment from planes at metro airport

CHEROKEE COUNTY, Ga. — An airport is an unusual spot for a high-dollar heist.

The search is on for a high-flying thief who pilots say stole thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment out of their airplanes at the Cherokee County airport.

Channel 2’s Justin Wilfon learned the thief may be a pilot himself.

It’s believed the thief possibly got there by flying a plane to the airport, landing on the runway and breaking into planes.

“You can see in the airplane where it slid out,” pilot Philip Sanders said.

Sanders showed Wilfon the damage to his plane just a few days after the thief broke in and ripped out thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment.

“I’ve been in aviation for 40 years, have literally never had a radio stolen out of an airplane, so this a first me,” Sanders said.

The thief broke into at least four planes.

“We don’t know who did it, but my assumption is someone flew in,” Sanders said.

It’s a theory the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office said it is pursuing.

“It was actually kind of disbelief,” Sanders said.

Deputies believe the thief pulled off the heist in the dark of night early Saturday morning, when the rural airport is largely unmonitored.

The incident reports detail the $40,000 worth of equipment the thief stole from the planes, including multiple navigational radios.

For now, Sanders can still fly his plane, even with that missing part.

“These people knew what they were doing. Hopefully, the radios show up one day and they get caught,” he said.

The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office was told by the FBI that it’s looking at a similar case out of state where a thief possibly flew in to an airport.

That’s one of the reasons the Sheriff’s Office believes that may be what happened here.