Teenager Steals Planes For Joyride, Offered Flying Lessons

A Chinese teenager broke into an airport and took two planes for a late-night joyride. He has now been handed a hefty fine, along with an opportunity to learn how to fly.

On June 15, the unnamed 13-year-old sneaked into his local airport in the city of Huzhou, in the Zhejiang province of eastern China. CCTV footage shows him piloting an aircraft and crashing it into a guardrail. He then moves on to another airplane and taxis around it before leaving.

Footage of the incident has gone viral on Chinese social media platforms like Weibo.

According to Global Times, while the teenager caused damages worth 8,000 yuan, he himself was unharmed. Authorities have been fairy sympathetic of his misdeed and impressed that he managed to control the plane without any prior training.

BBC reports that the director of the airport told Pear News that the boy must be very clever, as "it is impossible to learn by observation alone". So while the airport steps up its security, it has also offered to train the teenager as a pilot.

In November last year, two Utah teenagers, aged 14 and 15, were detained after stealing and flying a small airplane.