Port Ludlow man charged with felony assault for using airplane as a weapon

PORT ORCHARD — A 56-year-old Jefferson County man, reportedly drunk, was charged Thursday with felony assault after he allegedly drove a small airplane at people near a private airport in Silverdale.

On Wednesday, a man teaching a motorcycle class near Apex Airpark, off Anderson Hill Road, called Kitsap County to report the Port Ludlow man had tried to hit him with the airplane. The airplane remained on the ground during the incident and did not take off.

The man told deputies that Jeffrey Wilfred S. Dorsey, who he described as intoxicated and obnoxious, had approached him in a vehicle and yelled at him and his students saying they were “running down” his property values, according to court documents.

Dorsey allegedly returned a few minutes later in a small white airplane, driving it toward the crowd of students.

The teacher and students moved out of the way but after cutting the engine briefly to yell and curse at them, Dorsey allegedly drove the airplane at the crowd again, according to court documents. Like before, the teacher and students moved out of the way and Dorsey left the area in the plane.

“When he saw the blades of the propeller spinning and coming at him he believed Dorsey was going to hit him with the plane,” a deputy wrote of the teacher, who armed himself with a gun thinking Dorsey might return.

Deputies received a search warrant for the hangar owned by Dorsey and after breaking down the door they found him on a couch in a back room where he said he had been sleeping and did not hear the deputies knocking, according to court documents.

Dorsey was charged with second-degree assault. He was booked into the Kitsap County Jail and held on $200,000 bail.