Pilot Tracks Down Thief From the Air

INSIDE EDITION talks to the pilot who flew over his own house to find a thief trying to break in.

Talk about timing!

David Zehntner and his wife Berna were flying home from vacation in their own small plane when they decided to fly over their house near Fort Myers, Florida.

That's when they spotted a burglar casing their home.

David descended to 300 feet, and as he got lower he saw the man stealing his trailer.

"My wife's shaking her fist in the window. She's shaking her fist, going, 'Get away from our house!'" David said.

The thief hitched the trailer up to his truck and took off with David in hot pursuit from high in the sky.

He followed the thief for 10 miles, going down country roads and through town. The suspect had no idea he was being followed from above.

"When you're up there, you see everything. There's nowhere for somebody to go," David said.

Finally, when he had a pretty good idea where the thief was headed, David landed at a small air-strip and called 911.

Local cops took over the chase and quickly captured a suspect — 59-year-old Gary Robert Haines was arrested and charged with robbery.

David said he still can't believe his luck with catching a thief red-handed from a thousand feet in the air.

He said, "I caught a thief that would otherwise have totally gotten away."