'Bandit' in custody, but fate of stolen plane still up in the air

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July 12--Last week, Bloomington pilot John "Spider" Miller went about his days knowing that somewhere in the Bahamas, his recreational airplane was abandoned, the nose wheel ripped apart, and that the notorious teenage fugitive suspected of stealing and crashing it was on the loose.

Sunday morning he learned the 19-year-old "Barefoot Bandit" had been captured.

But he's still unsure what will happen to his Cessna, the plane he left on a Monroe County Airport hangar over the July Fourth weekend, key in the ignition.

Bahamian police have told Miller the only way to remove his plane from the thick mangroves of the week-old crash site is by helicopter.

Last Sunday, Coast Guard officials spent up to four hours hiking to the plane, guided there by its mysterious emergency crash signal.

Authorities almost immediately blamed the crash -- and a string of at least seven burglaries in seven days on the Great Abaco Island -- on Colton Harris-Moore, the Washington state group-home runaway who has dodged U.S. police for two years while they suspected he stole cars, boats and several more planes in the West and Midwest.

It was the Royal Bahamas Police Force that finally found and arrested the 6-foot-5-inch teenager early Sunday morning in northern Eleuthera, according to the Associated Press. Authorities flew him to Nassau, the country's capital, where he faces possible extradition to the United States.

AP photographs show Harris-Moore stepped off the plane Sunday afternoon wearing no shoes.

He will be arraigned this week on charges including theft and burglary in the Bahamas, according to the AP. Those charges will take priority over his pending charges in the U.S.

And although it's the end of an internationally popular and inherently zany crime spree, 60-year-old Miller said he hadn't heard of any such "Barefoot Bandit" until last Sunday afternoon, when he did an Internet search.

"It's been difficult for me," he said a week later. "I didn't choose to be in this situation. But I'm happy with the way it's ended."

The Barefoot discovery

Miller was working when he missed a call on his cell phone from the Coast Guard July 4. A voice mail message told him they'd received his airplane's emergency signal somewhere in the Bahamas.

Doubtful, Miller first drove out to the airport to check on the plane. It had been due for an oil change, so earlier that weekend he left the keys in the ignition and the cab unlocked for maintenance workers.

But no one could find the plane Sunday, Miller said. He called local police, and the pieces came together before he went home that night.

Miller's stolen plane was worth about $650,000 before the crash and likely had full fuel tanks and could fly up to five hours.

Miller has flown it to Florida, Dallas, New York and Philadelphia. It's the perfect plane for a nonstop flight to the Bahamas, he said, because it goes a long way on very little gas.

"And that's when I found out about the Barefoot Bandit," Miller said as if it had been years ago. "And when I did, I read about his upbringing... I just didn't want him to die or hurt himself in my airplane."

Salvaging what's left

Miller expects his plane, still wading in shallow, poorly accessible waters, is destroyed. He doesn't expect to see it again, but he's at least waiting on a box of personal items from the plane's cab that investigators promised last week.

According to Miller's insurance policy and his own speculation, a salvage operator likely will strip the plane of anything valuable and destroy the rest. Like a car, he said, most of the plane will go to a junkyard.

But even that won't be easy, because the wings are part of a unibody design and don't unbolt. Miller guesses if the plane comes off the island at all, it'll be hauled on a barge.

"Logistically they have their hands full," he said. "Or I do. I don't know. I'm waiting to see how it all plays out."

Miller, a champion golfer whose full-time job is repack manager at Best Beers in Bloomington, received his pilot's license 11 years ago at age 42.

"I have always wanted to fly since I was a kid," he said Sunday. "I got a late start. It took me quite a while."

Miller had trips planned for the coming months, including one business flight on the Cessna to Minnesota. He will now fly commercial.

"There's nothing I can do," he said. "I certainly haven't dwelled on it. I made my contacts, filled out my papers.

"Now, I wait."