BY AMELIA BISCARDI
Daily Post Staff Writer
A man who stole an airplane from the Palo Alto Airport and landed it on Half Moon Bay beach pleaded no contest to a felony yesterday, according to a prosecutor.
“I cannot remember another occasion in all the years where we’ve charged that,” District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said about Luiz Gustavo Aires’ felony charge of theft of an airplane.
Aires, 50, a transient with a Miami address, wanted to show the Department of Defense that airports need to be more secure, according to Wagstaffe. Aires stole the plane on Feb. 8 after wandering the airport for three hours and finding a plane unlocked, Wagstaffe said.
Aires will face up to two years in prison according to Wagstaffe as part of his plea deal.
Aires has an expired pilot’s license in his native Brazil but isn’t legally allowed to fly in the U.S., Wagstaffe said.
A key isn’t needed to start the particular plane that Aires took, Palo Alto police Lt. David Lee said at the time. Aires told police that no one called over the radio once he took off, Wagstaffe said. Once he got over the hills, he realized he didn’t have enough gas to go anywhere else, so he started looking for a place to land, Wagstaffe said.
Palo Alto police aren’t sure how Aires got into the airport, Lee said. The airplane, worth $150,000, only suffered from some minor interior damage as a result of its trip to Half Moon Bay, according to Lee. Aires will be back in court for sentencing on Dec. 6.
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