NASSAU, Bahamas — Police were hunting across a tourist island yesterday for signs of a pilot who vanished after wrecking a small plane in the Bahamas and US investigators turned their suspicions toward an American teen on the run dubbed the “Barefoot Bandit.”
The single-engine Cessna that crashed in shallow waters off Abaco island was apparently stolen from an airport in Bloomington, Ind. By the time rescuers arrived Sunday, nobody was inside.
The 2009 Cessna 400 Corvalis was stolen over the weekend from the Monroe County Airport, the facility’s manager, Bruce Payton said.
US authorities said the heist has similarities to other thefts attributed to 19-year-old Colton Harris-Moore, a Washington state teenager who has no formal flight training.
The teen got his nickname for allegedly committing crimes while shoeless. He is suspected of stealing cars and small airplanes to evade authorities since escaping from a halfway house near Seattle in 2008.