Thief posing as pilot stealing airport cars

A mysterious string of car thefts at city airports spanning three states has law enforcement searching for a man posing as a pilot and even providing a fake Arkansas identity to steal cars.

At almost every municipal airport across the country, there's a courtesy car for pilots who land there and need to run a few errands. The courtesy car at the Clarksville Airport was stolen this week, but the thief left a clue left behind led police to connect it to a few other thefts just like it.

"Well apparently there is a serial courtesy car thief driving across the country using the courtesy cars from small airports," said Jim Looney, Clarksville Airport manager.

Looney says their courtesy car went missing over the weekend, but strangely another car was left in its place, one from Ottawa, Kansas.

"He left it here and accessed our building and they key and took car and went somewhere else," said Looney.

It turns out the same thing happened at the Ottawa Airport. The thief there took their courtesy car and left another stolen car from the Cameron, Missouri airport.

In Ottawa, the man provided a fake ID of an Arkansas man and a fake tail number. He was even captured on their surveillance dressed in typical pilot gear.

"I've been around airports more than 50 years and I have never heard of anybody doing this before. It's unusual," said Looney.

In Clarksville, he was able to crack the door code, which has acronyms that someone with knowledge of flying would know.

"Typically it requires you have more than a basic knowledge of aviation to be able to access the vehicles," said Looney.

Airports across the region are being warned of this thief. It's unclear where he'll stop next or why he's making this cross country trek stealing airport cars. Law enforcement in Kansas and Missouri say the airports are changing how they lend out their courtesy car.