AOPA Pilot Blog: Reporting Points

You read about Colton Harris-Moore, the infamous 19-year-old better known as the “Barefoot Bandit”—and the five airplanes he stole—in the November issue of AOPA Pilot.

Tonight he’s the subject of 48 Hours Mystery: Chasing the Barefoot Bandit, which will be broadcast by CBS at 10 Eastern and Pacific. The show tracked Harris-Moore’s escapades over a six-month period.

Dick Rutan helped film the episode. The show wanted a Cessna Corvalis for some aerial scenes, and Mark Smith—a cameraman who also is an instrument-rated pilot—found Rutan’s. Rutan agreed to help and even choreographed a takeoff that was shot from a car beside the Corvalis on the active runway.

“I had a great day filming with the crew,” Rutan said afterward.

Harris-Moore’s last flight, which ended with a crash landing in the Bahamas shortly before his arrest in July, was in a Cessna Corvalis 400 stolen from John Miller of Bloomington, Indiana. If you miss the broadcast Saturday night, it’s available through iTunes.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 13th, 2010 at 2:44 pm and is filed under Mike Collins, Pilot Culture, What's In AOPA Pilot. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.