The stolen civilian plane temporarily closed airspace over Canada’s busiest Vancouver International Airport on Tuesday.
Cessna 172 took off from Victoria International Airport, where it was used for flight training and began to fly about 40 miles north to Vancouver and turn.
“There’s an aircraft that’s hijacked and is located near the airport,” the Tower Controller warned other planes in a recording on the website liveatc.net. “You have the ability to move at your discretion, just in case something begins to move towards you.”
People on the ground saw the plane immersed low, and air traffic controllers moved the other aircraft out of the way.
One of those planes was the Westjet Airlines Boeing 737. This was directed to abort the landing so that “Rogue 172” crossed about four miles in front of them.
“He was making a fairly radical turn at low altitude,” witness Paul Henney told CBC, partner at the CNN News investigation. “I’m amazing, is he in trouble?”
The stolen plane eventually landed safely at Vancouver International and was soon surrounded by police. The suspect, not identified by the authorities, was the only person inside and was arrested.
“A security incident involving a small civil aircraft in the airspace near YVR has prompted a temporary ground stop for the arrival of the aircraft,” the airport said in a statement. The plane was stopped arriving for 39 minutes, and nine planes were converted to other airports.
Police and the airport did not provide any motivation or other explanations as to why the plane was stolen.
CNN’s Paula Newton contributed to this report.
