Photo: Twitter
A 29-year-old man has died after he hijacked an empty 79-seat airplane from the Seattle-Tacoma Airport, and crashed on a nearby island after being chased there by two F15 fighter jets.
The man’s identity hasn’t been made public, but CNN says that Alaska Air Group, whose jet it was, confirmed he’d been working as a ground service agent with the company. “As a ground service agent, employees work directing aircraft for takeoff, gate approach and de-icing planes,” the report notes.
A call was placed to say that an employee had taken a jet without authorization on Friday evening. Audio recordings between the plane, an Horizon Air turboprop Q400 jet, and traffic control show the efforts made by the team on the ground to get him to land the plane.
They called the man “Rich.” He seemed depressed and suicidal, saying he didn’t want to land the plane because he imagined this is where this would end. He didn’t want to get life in jail, and said he was afraid the military chasing him in the fighter jets would “rough him up” if he landed where they instructed him to land.
After the transmission cut off, he continued to make aerial stunts that he was clearly not prepared for. It was that, and not the fact that he’d been chased by fighter jets, that made him lose control of the plane and crash on Ketron Island. It houses about 20 residents but no one was in the wooded area where the plane fell into a ball of fire.
The hijacker was pronounced dead on the scene. According to the FBI’s Seattle office, they’re not investigating the incident as a terrorist attack, but rather as a joyride gone awfully wrong.
“We're working to find out everything we possibly can about what happened, working with the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the National Transportation Safety Board. We are giving those investigators our full support and cooperation,” Brad Tilden, the chief executive officer of Alaska Air Group, also says in a statement to the media outlet.
A call was placed to say that an employee had taken a jet without authorization on Friday evening. Audio recordings between the plane, an Horizon Air turboprop Q400 jet, and traffic control show the efforts made by the team on the ground to get him to land the plane.
They called the man “Rich.” He seemed depressed and suicidal, saying he didn’t want to land the plane because he imagined this is where this would end. He didn’t want to get life in jail, and said he was afraid the military chasing him in the fighter jets would “rough him up” if he landed where they instructed him to land.
After the transmission cut off, he continued to make aerial stunts that he was clearly not prepared for. It was that, and not the fact that he’d been chased by fighter jets, that made him lose control of the plane and crash on Ketron Island. It houses about 20 residents but no one was in the wooded area where the plane fell into a ball of fire.
The hijacker was pronounced dead on the scene. According to the FBI’s Seattle office, they’re not investigating the incident as a terrorist attack, but rather as a joyride gone awfully wrong.
“We're working to find out everything we possibly can about what happened, working with the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the National Transportation Safety Board. We are giving those investigators our full support and cooperation,” Brad Tilden, the chief executive officer of Alaska Air Group, also says in a statement to the media outlet.
Some dude stole a plane from #Seatac (Allegedly), did a loop-the-loop, ALMOST crashed into #ChambersBay, then crossed in front of our party, chased by fighter jets and subsequently crashed. Weird times. pic.twitter.com/Ra4LcIhwfU
— bmbdgty (@drbmbdgty) August 11, 2018
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