Georgia man says he was only offered a sandwich after plane broken into at John C. Tune

*Editor’s note: Authorities originally said more than one suspect was arrested for breaking into airplanes at John C. Tune Airport, but have since issued a correction saying only one suspect was arrested. The story below has been updated to reflect this claim.*

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Middle Tennessee sees no shortage of car break-ins, but plane break-ins are more rare. However, the Metro Nashville Airport Authority told News 2 a suspect was taken into custody in Missouri for stealing out of airplanes at John C. Tune Airport.

Every so often, pilot Raymond Daniel and his wife like to get away from Newborn, Georgia, and enjoy bluegrass in the heart of Music City. However, last week the couple got a surprise when they went to fly home.

Daniel’s wife discovered their plane had been broken into.

“She got in and she noticed the avionics missing, and so we went back inside and they didn’t look surprised when we walked in there, and I told them that we had a problem because they had already discovered four other planes that had been broken into,” Daniel said.

As you can imagine, this isn’t something Daniel deals with often. He said he was disappointed after paying for a special service called Contour to park and watch over his plane.

Although airport police told Daniel they did have video of the suspect scaling the fence, he said his plane was parked out of view.

“We were left to figure out where to stay, transportation, everything was all on us, and had no offer from them for anything, except for a sandwich,” Daniel said.

Unfortunately, that was nowhere near the value of the estimated $12,000 worth of equipment stolen from Daniel, including navigation devices such as a transponder and two GPS devices. He had to get special clearance from air traffic control to get home.

“Basically, we just came back home without radio or nav. I just flew by the ground reference all the way back home,” Daniel said.

The airport authority did confirm their officers were able to help identify a suspect who was later arrested out of state, but Daniel hopes more will be done to help secure airplanes overnight at John C. Tune.

“Their cameras are good for going back after the fact, trying to figure out what happened. So basically, they said that it’s a secure airport; I say that it’s not if you’re not monitoring the cameras,” he added.

News 2 reached out to Contour for comment. A manager said he could not comment on the situation or the overnight security of their aircrafts. News 2 was directed to the Airport Authority for comment.

The Airport Authority said they could not provide much comment due to the ongoing investigation. However, they said they were proud of their officers in this investigation and John C. Tune does have overnight security personnel on site.

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