Early Thursday morning, a 22-year-old student pilot jumped the fence at the Orlando Melbourne International Airport and attempted to steal a vacant commercial airliner, police said, before being wrestled to the ground and arrested.
His name: Nishal Sankat, a Florida Institute of Technology senior from the twin islands of Trinidad and Tobago. He has dual citizenship of Canada and Trinidad and Tobago, Melbourne Police Chief David Gillespie said. He left the United States after that visa expired, but returned on his Canadian passport, he said. He has a Florida driver’s license.
Sankat has been attending FIT since 2014 and recently petitioned to graduate in 2019, according to university officials. He’s been studying aviation management on a part-time basis and has taken part in some flight training in the past.
