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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: 2) by sjames on Monday August 13 2018, @03:58AM (3 children)
If ATC doesn't have to be on board to transmit the lock signal, neither do the bad guys.
So that just leaves us with an expensive system (once you take exhaustive testing, certification, etc into account) that slightly increases the risk of a terrible accident to prevent something that has happened once in living memory..
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 13 2018, @06:30PM
It's not an idea I'm championing, it's an idea I'm saying somebody else will champion and probably make a passable argument for.
The cost of it is trivial as compared to wet-ware TSA goons, but cost will definitely be a factor in the arguments.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 13 2018, @06:43PM (1 child)
Google will outlive you, these 5 have happened since I was born: https://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/airlines/a22713369/richard-russell-ground-crew-steal-planes/ [popularmechanics.com]
more detail on the 2003 727:
https://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/the-727-that-vanished-2371187/ [airspacemag.com]
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday August 14 2018, @09:20AM
But note that all but one of those were of military aircraft (which would be exempt anyway), and the one civilian case was an Angola, far from the FAA's influence and likely far away from any equipment that might facilitate such a system.