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from the tomorrow-might-have-been-a-better-day-dept dept.
He stole a 76-seat Bombardier Q400 from Seattle-Tacoma Airport. Two NORAD F-15s scrambled from Portland. He was in contact with Air Traffic Control, apologized to his family. Said he was unwilling to land at a military base because "they would rough me up". Directed out over the Pacific by the fighters, crashed on an uninhabited island in Puget Sound.
A witness claimed he did a loop-de-loop but I didn't see it in his video.
I am completely convinced that suicidal depression can always be cured.
He had all the proper security credentials. He had been working his shift and was believed to still be in uniform. The baggage handler didn't seem out of place at all — until he was taxiing down the runway and taking off in a stolen passenger plane.
Media outlets identified him as Richard Russell, a 27-year-old who sparked a combination of amazement and fear as he flew — alone — a 76-seat Horizon Air Q400 plane for more than an hour before it crashed on a wooded area on Ketron Island south of Seattle.
He did a barrel roll. A daring swoop. Officials said they didn't believe he even had a pilot's license. "Incredible," Horizon Air President and Chief Executive Gary Beck said Saturday.
But investigators are still trying to understand why he decided to take the plane for a what appeared to be joy ride Friday evening from the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
The act also reignited discussions about airport and aviation security, with Alaska Airlines Chairman and CEO Brad Tilden repeating several times Saturday that passenger and employee safety was — and is — the company's primary concern.
Also at CNN.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by theluggage on Sunday August 12 2018, @04:53PM (5 children)
I'm not sure that exceptional events like this are a good starting point for public debate. The vast majority of people with mental health issues suffer in far more mundane ways - while this event is just as tragic for the people immediately involved, I don't think its exactly a representative example of mental issues, and would over-emphasise the idea that the mentally ill were a danger to society.
If you want something well-publicised to spark a debate, the many deaths of celebrities from depression or addiction might be a better rallying cry - although the people are famous, the circumstances tend to be more relevant to the majority.
No, I think the take home from this is "you can walk into the cockpit of an airliner and just take off - nothing like a car ignition key needed? No jumper that the ground crew have to pull? WTF?"
Still, the reality is that modern society relies on the vast majority of people not being suicidally insane. To assume otherwise would be extremely oppressive and probably still wouldn't stop unforeseen events.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 12 2018, @11:08PM (2 children)
The guy trashed a kind of expensive plane but went out of his way to avoid endangering anyone but himself. Don't see how this qualifies for being a danger to society.
Had he instead seeked out treatment, he would have lost his job because reasons. Then, unemployed and slapped with the ludicrous hospital bills in the USA's he might have just managed to eternally indebt his family before offing himself out of guilt.
His little stunt should instead spark a discussion about how a large percentage of mentally ill people are highly intelligent and capable of far more than even considered possible for the average Joe. Instead of making their life more difficult with statutory regulations banning them from certain jobs, sensitive environments (and thereby discouraging seeking treatment if they do work in such a job or environment) or (in some countries) even from driving a car, punishing the gaps in their curriculums while seeking medical treatment or putting them in demeaning menial "my first wörk" environments like sheltered workshops to "reintegrate" them into our ideologically required society of full employment defining success in life by their carreer paths... we may have to look for alternative paths of integrating them into society so they can put their talents to use.
IIRC there are a select few experimental IT companies reruiting exclusively from mentally ill persons (sorry, can't find the article right now) and they are doing quite well.
From my own experience (I've seen an asylum from the inside a couple of times), communication among mentally ill persons of various ailments is exceptional, while they won't feel understood by a society looking down on them as defective, having very different priorities than they do by way of never having experienced real hardship. I can definitely see how a company as described above would thrive, probably with a genuine familial corporate culture instead of the surrogate levels of happiness and satisfaction the MBA managers of corporate reality try to engineer to keep their human resources groomed in a state fit enough to perform at the highest possible cost effectiveness.
Maybe there's something to be learned from those all-crazies companies here...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday August 13 2018, @03:04AM (1 child)
When I was in Washington's Western State Hospital I was coding my iOS app on paper with a pencil.
There are lots of job training programs for the homeless, also GED preparatory instructions. But consider the disabled welder I met one day at breakfast the the Blanchet House Of Hospitality:
"You talk to some guys on the street and they'll tell you they used to make six figures."
I decided not to tell him that I used to make six figures.
Each day that I sang on the street my only goal was to get three dollars in tips. That would buy a me a coffee with a tip for my barista. Once I'd paid for my table that way, I'd hang out in Starbucks all day long so I could use their power sockets, internet and restroom so I could look for coding jobs.
I met a homeless former Boeing safety inspector at CityTeam. "Don't ever fly on the 787," he cautioned me.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @04:01AM
Cool tip bro.
I heard from a legit dude never to wipe with single sheet paper. To this day, I never wipe if it's single sheet.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday August 13 2018, @02:59AM (1 child)
It really got me down that there was nowhere to shelter from the rain when waiting in line for meals to be served at the soup kitchens.
Some awnings would go a long ways towards easing the mundane suffering of a great many people.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @04:09AM
Really the same is true all across society.
To me, it kind of explains the success of Apple: just pay a few extra fucking pennies and fix shit properly.
Nothing more clever than that. Just fix shit right the first time.
I can't recommend highly enough the TV show "Holmes on Homes" - one episode and you'll be addicted.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=holmes+on+homes [youtube.com]