Delta suspends pilot jailed after threats

GRIFFIN, Ga., Nov. 12 (UPI) -- Delta Air Lines Inc. suspended a Georgia pilot Thursday while authorities investigated charges he tried to run over two police officers with his private plane.

Dan Wayne Gryder, 48, was held without bond in Spalding County Jail charged with two counts of aggravated assault and obstruction, police said.

He was scheduled to be arraigned Friday, the sheriff's office said.

Gryder, a Delta pilot and private aircraft instructor, was arrested Wednesday at Griffin-Spalding Airport in Griffin, Ga., a general aviation airfield with one runway about 40 miles south of Atlanta, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

He was allegedly driving his car across the runway and taxiway, disrupting the airport, Griffin Police Investigator Bryan Clanton said.

When two officers approached Gryder, he gave them a fake name, police said, the newspaper reported.

After learning the pilot was Gryder, the officers tried to give him six citations, but Gryder allegedly refused to sign them and boarded his plane, a 1937 propeller-driven DC-3A, police said.

After starting the engine he allegedly told one of the officers that if she moved, he would strike her car, police said.

The officer summoned backup.

Additional police and sheriff's deputies arrived and ordered Gryder to stop, but he continued to taxi down the runway -- only to run out of fuel just as he was about to take off, police said.

Police then arrested him and brought him to jail.

Gryder "essentially shut the airport down for almost 45 minutes," Clanton said.

Delta spokesman Anthony Black told the Journal-Constitution Gryder was "suspended pending the completion into the investigation in this incident."

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is also investigating and may file additional charges, police said.