INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
California police have thwarted the pilot's vigilante deportation attempt (Representational)
California police say they thwarted a vigilante deportation attempt last week - in which a
pilot allegedly kidnapped a foreign student, took him to an airport and tried to send him "back to China.Jonathan McConkey, a pilot and
certified flight instructor, is accused of orchestrating the kidnapping with his assistant, Kelsi Hoser, a ground instructor
Both reportedly worked at the IASCO flight training school in Redding, California.Among IASCO's students were dozens of Chinese nationals
with student visas, according to court records
KRCR News 7 reported that the school contracted with China's civil aviation authority to train its new pilots, one of whom was apparently
Tianshu Shi.Shi told reporters that he had been in the United States for about seven months - living with several other IASCO trainees at an
It was there, police said, that McConkey and Hoser came for the student.The pair first showed up at the apartment on Thursday night,
according to a police statement
They allegedly informed Shi that they were sending him back to China and would return in the morning.Police have not explained why anyone
would want Shi gone from the country
An unrelated lawsuit, filed last year by a former instructor, alleges that some of IASCO's Chinese students spoke so little English that
they could not safely fly - that one had nearly crashed into another plane because he had misunderstood his teacher's instructions.Those
allegations predate Shi's training, however
And the lawsuit does not mention Hoser or McConkey, who is reportedly a 48-year-old manager at the school.Police say the two returned to
Shi's apartment around dawn on Friday to carry out their would-be deportation.When Shi refused to go with them, police said, McConkey
"battered" him and threatened physical violence.McConkey grabbed Shi roughly by the arm, the student told the Record Searchlight, and said
he needed to get on a plane now or face worse violence."He's very rude," a visibly shaken Shi recalled to the newspaper
"Used too much dirty words."But before Shi was taken from his home, he managed to call his brother in Shanghai and ask for help.His brother
tried to call Shi back but couldn't reach him
Shi was by then being driven several miles to the municipal airport, where the flight school kept its planes.So Shi's brother phoned Redding
police, who scrambled to the airport and rescued the student before his accused abductors could put him on a plane.The pair's plan, Shi told
the Searchlight, had been to fly him to the Bay Area, then put him on another plane to China.McConkey and Hoser were arrested and charged
with conspiracy and kidnapping
They were being held on $100,000 bail each as of Friday, according to KRCR News 7, and could not be immediately reached.The incident has
left Shi distraught, the Searchlight reported, and grappling to convey the trauma of the event in his limited English.But he conveyed
"The police officer is the best American," Shi told the newspaper.(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by
TheIndianSubcontinent staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
