Airline Employee Steals Plane

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/11/us/plane-crash-unauthorized-takeoff/index.html







This was absolutely insane. It’s a shame it happened at all, but at least no one on the ground was hurt and he crashed in a relatively unpopulated area.

I feel an intense sadness for the controllers who tried to deal with this guy. It couldn’t have been easy.

Steve Shannon said:

I feel an intense sadness for the controllers who tried to deal with this guy. It couldn’t have been easy.

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I couldn’t imagine being put in that position, nor being able to juggle both the calls with the hijacker and the normal traffic. They all did an awesome job.

From reading the stories online, I can't tell if he intentionally crashed rather than return to the airport, or if he lost control/ran out of fuel. For those that have been following this more closely, is there any indication of this? Just curious...

Marc_G said:

From reading the stories online, I can't tell if he intentionally crashed rather than return to the airport, or if he lost control/ran out of fuel. For those that have been following this more closely, is there any indication of this? Just curious...

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I've been wondering too. I belive he was suicidal and had no intention of landing. He mentioned low fuel a few times but never followed the controller's directions or vectors to land. He was more interested in doing a barrell roll.

I think, and this is pure speculation, that he flew until he was on fumes then aimed for that island. I don't know why he'd do that instead of aiming for the square miles of open water all around.

I feel bad for the controller too. He's an ATC, not a suicide counselor.

Exactimator said:

I've been wondering too. I belive he was suicidal and had no intention of landing. He mentioned low fuel a few times but never followed the controller's directions or vectors to land. He was more interested in doing a barrell roll.

I think, and this is pure speculation, that he flew until he was on fumes then aimed for that island. I don't know why he'd do that instead of aiming for the square miles of open water all around.

I feel bad for the controller too. He's an ATC, not a suicide counselor.

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That’s how it appears to me from listening to the recordings as well. Just a super odd situation all around.

Marc_G said:

From reading the stories online, I can't tell if he intentionally crashed rather than return to the airport, or if he lost control/ran out of fuel. For those that have been following this more closely, is there any indication of this? Just curious...

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Another hypothesis is that the employee didn't really plan for what happened after takeoff. I could imagine a person saying something like "I could totally steal ones of these planes one day! Wouldn't that be awesome?!" without thinking too hard about the consequences. He might have planned to lose his job, but probably not for serious prison time. Once his mind got focused by a pair of F-15s on his tail, that's a different story. The sheriff wouldn't say whether he had deliberately crashed or just failed in aerobatic maneuvers. I do think he knew he was pushing the edge, but may not have planned to die.

Regardless, if we don't know in the next few days (from journals/notes/whatever uncovered in the investigation), we probably never will know. A sad day for his family and co-workers in addition to ATC.

One of his last transmissions indicated his right engine may have been failing due to fuel exhaustion. He most likely decided that was it, and intentionally crashed. Earlier he had mentioned that he wanted to get a barrel roll done, then call it good and nose it in.

This was bizarre. My wife was one of the many who were stuck in a plane on the ground at SeaTac as the planes piled up on the taxiways as the airport was shut down during all this. She’d just arrived on her last leg home from Ireland - a flight from Philadelphia.

Meanwhile I was at the closing banquet at NARAM-60 and was just chatting with Vern Estes when she was able to call me and tell me she was safe, but stuck. She did get home about an hour and a half later than expected.

Everyone wonders in the clueless media that apparently can't take a few seconds to do a Google search how he could take off and fly that plane so well.

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I'm not sure exactly why but this whole story just saddens me.

grouch said:

I'm not sure exactly why but this whole story just saddens me.

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It did me too. Listening to the radio conversation made me want to like the guy. He had a sense of humor about him even then.

The guy steals a $32Mil airplane.
He endangers the lives of thousands of people.
He commits multiple felony's .
He causes thousands of people to be delayed with his stunt.
He causes much emotional grief to many, many people.
And you want to like this low life?

Really?

This guy was probably mentally ill. He was not acting or thinking rationally. At one point in the audio he asks the controller if he thinks the airline will give him a job as a pilot if he successfully lands the plane. While rational people can and should be held accountable for their actions, there is a reason for the "not guilty by reason of insanity" defense. We should try to be understanding and compassionate for him and his loved ones, and thank god that no innocent people were harmed.

mach7 said:

The guy steals a $32Mil airplane.
He endangers the lives of thousands of people.
He commits multiple felony's .
He causes thousands of people to be delayed with his stunt.
He causes much emotional grief to many, many people.
And you want to like this low life?

Really?

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He seemed more likable than you do.

I don't have to like someone to feel compassion, empathy, sympathy for them.

CoyoteNumber2 said:

He seemed more likable than you do.

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Fair enough if you feel that way.

It doesn't alter the fact that what he did was reprehensible and incredibly dangerous to many innocent people
and will cause emotional distress to many people. All doing something the average 5 year old knows is wrong.

If you want to "like" him thats up to you, its no matter to me. I just thought some facts needed to be listed.

mach7 said:

I just thought some facts needed to be listed.

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Well thank you for educating us. We are all so much more enlightened now.

you are welcome.

On a positive note he may have inadvertently saved some lives. That's if the airlines and government now act to make security changes that should have been in place after 9/11. Dont leave the keys to the car guys.. come on now.

mach7 said:

Fair enough if you feel that way.

It doesn't alter the fact that what he did was reprehensible and incredibly dangerous to many innocent people
and will cause emotional distress to many people. All doing something the average 5 year old knows is wrong.

If you want to "like" him thats up to you, its no matter to me. I just thought some facts needed to be listed.

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I think you parsed what I said incorrectly. I said “listening to the conversation with the controller made me want to like him.” I also want to be rich and thin. I didn’t say I like him and I certainly don’t admire what he did, but while listening to the conversation I felt like one of his many facets was a good natured likability. That’s simply how I felt and I realize that’s at odds with his actions, but even so if you listen to him there’s never a sense that he is evil, just sadly broken. Unfortunately that could happen to many of us. None of us is perfect and neither are our friends.
Something else that you could have added to your litany of things he did wrong was the intense grief he has undoubtedly caused his family and friends. In fact I consider that worse than the monetary cost or the delay that passengers experienced which you listed.
I don’t pretend to understand why he did what he did. From the accounts I’ve heard he was beloved by many. I’m sorry for them.

Point 5 of what i listed:

He causes much emotional grief to many, many people.

Another point, Airliners do not have keys. Never had, never will.

Security at airports is very tight, Only certain people have access to the aircraft. As a push/tow crew
he was one of them.

Mustang67 said:

On a positive note he may have inadvertently saved some lives. That's if the airlines and government now act to make security changes that should have been in place after 9/11. Dont leave the keys to the car guys.. come on now.

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What changes should have been in place that would have prevented this?

Dont leave the keys in it. Some kind of key code access that is required to power on the aircraft.

Mustang67 said:

Dont leave the keys in it. Some kind of key code access that is required to power on the aircraft.

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Just to confirm, you're speaking figuratively, correct? You understand planes don't have keys.

mach7 said:

Point 5 of what i listed:

He causes much emotional grief to many, many people.

Another point, Airliners do not have keys. Never had, never will.

Security at airports is very tight, Only certain people have access to the aircraft. As a push/tow crew
he was one of them.

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I agree about the security. That’s why it’s so important to understand more about mental health and how that contributed to this. It could have happened to a pilot with a full plane. Simply judging this person, rather than trying to understand, will not prevent the next instance.
Perhaps to take the edge off this conversation, I got on a plane in SLC once and somehow the pilot and copilot locked the cockpit security door with both of them on the outside. They had to call one of their mechanics to get them into the cockpit. Someone always has to be able to access the cockpit.

I was an aircraft mechanic in the US military, so yes figuratively

Cnorm said:

Just to confirm, you're speaking figuratively, correct? You understand planes don't have keys.

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Actually planes usually have safety keys to start them up.
He didn't have one, so he messed with the wiring in the plane and basically "hot wired" it to start the plane.



Thanks,

rockets said:

He didn't have one, so he messed with the wiring in the plane and basically "hot wired" it to start the plane.

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Source?

Mustang67 said:

I was an aircraft mechanic in the US military, so yes figuratively

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I see what you're saying. I agree that installing a code key would add security. However I would disagree that it's necessary. And the reason is that I believe (I'm not a pilot nor ground crew) it's difficult to steal an airliner.

In this case it happened because a significant number of things lined up and allowed it to happen. The man had access to secure areas, had training on how to hook up a tug and push the plane back, got into the plane, knew how to start, taxi and fly, and had the will and desire to do what he did.

That's a lot of things coming together to make it happen, and I think it's pretty rare. I don't know the statistics, but this is the first time I've ever heard of a plane like this getting stolen.

My argument is that it so difficult to do this and so rare that the key code is unecessary.

You'd know more about this than I would since you were a mechanic. I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Does anybody know how he was able to get into the plane after pushing it back? I thought the doors were high off the ground.