Tupelo, Mississippi pilot threatening to crash plane into Walmart, police say

The best possible outcome. I’m glad nobody got hurt.

Airports have security, and the subset of people who want to steal and can actually fly a plane is pretty small.

Suspect the plane was based there in the FBO hangar. It is possible they had a key. Making any modification to the plane would be very difficult if not impossible. There are planes with the same key, for example all aero commanders had only one key that fit all, and that was the same with Aerostar.

There is indeed a key to both the doors and the ignition, similar to a car. Where I learned to fly, the aircraft were parked outside (hangar space was more expensive), and the keys were in a binder in the office. The office was locked after hours, but during the day, it wouldn't have been hard to get to them, but relatively few people would have known where to look, and I guess the ones that did were honest. Of course, the fuel truck was also kept locked when not in use.

The aircraft on the ramp are already tied down to eye loops in the ground (in order to avoid movement by wind); it would certainly be conceivable to find a way to lock these. But it's funny to think, over 20 years after 9/11, that most general aviation airports still work on the principle of security through obscurity.

I watched WTVA (Tupelo/Columbus, MS) exclusively, didn’t bother watching watching any of the MSM. WTVA had a couple of reporters actively covering the story on the scene or close to it. Assumed there would be more information coming faster from someone locally on the ground w/a local interest instead of sitting in a studio hundreds of miles away.
Did WTVA report the same thing multiple times, sure did. But we have to remember information was hard to come by being an active & fluid/changing event. Something like this, local is usually better (like severe weather events) & I’d come a lot closer trusting the local source when they have a dog in the fight affecting them more directly than MSM or National Weather.

It's a big, central place, and since he started out so early it could just have been a plea for attention. Everyone assumes it had something to do with Wmart, but it may not have at all.

Obviously it’s the door greeters