Guy Steals Commercial Plane in Seattle and Crashes After Joyride
 

Everything is here including ATC audio with the guy talking about how he can fly because he plays video games. Suicide by plane theft.

https://heavy.com/news/2018/08/seata...unded-seattle/

**** yeah! That's how you do it

I'm sure it was a lot of fun until the part where he crashed and died.

I listened to the ATC and he was remarkably calm, seemed concerned that he was ruining everyone else’s dat, interspersed with talk of video games, vomiting, visiting the whale with the dead baby Orca, and wanting to do barrel rolls.

Sounds like a guy that was depressed and was just ready to end it all...so he went out like a champ.

I'm a simulator buff as well. I've also logged in about 20-30hrs on Skyhawks and Cherokees over the yrs and used to fly my grandpa's Challenger light sport airplane back in the day. Did a lot of that before I even started driving.

Maybe if I ever want to kill myself I should steal a plane, get one last glimpse of the beautiful world below and nosedive crash into the ocean. This guy is an inspiration to simulator buffs everywhere who've always asked themselves....what if.

weird, sad, and dumb.

and not interesting.

DB Cooper's little brother?

no offense to OP of course. Just saying, in general.

I would’ve played chicken with the fighter jet and made them shoot me down. Might as well go in style.

The video where he’s doing the loop right above the water is amazing. He has to stress the airframe.

He also came within feet of becoming a lawn dart.

At least the old dude who committed suicide by crashing his plane into the IRS building a few years back had a purpose. This guy last night apparently was just winging it. No pun intended, of course.

Haven’t seen that one.

would you like to learn to fly?
would you?
would you like to me see me try?

3rd video down. He rolls inverted and begins his loop only to realize there’s not enough room to complete it.

Insane.

Waste of an airframe but I guess I hope the dude really embraced his inner Alannis and had some fun before died.

Barrel roll, not a loop.

Nice to see fighter jets on the scene early......

Did they leave the keys in the ignition?

It’s one of those push button starters.

Wow, must have been a blast, well up until that sudden stop in the end.

So for the pilots out there — is it really that easy to take off and fly a plane?

That was here in Austin. The IRS was going to repossess his plane so he basically said, "Hey, tell you what, I'll just deliver it to you." ROFL

The hardest part from my experience in a single engine: the toughest is going to be knowing how to start the damned thing and then the counter-intuitiveness of using rudder pedals to steer and not the yoke when you're taxiing.

From then, you just have to hope you've got enough runway to hit the right V speed and then you're off. Planes are designed to stay aloft as long as possible, so once you've done that -you're golden.

Almost augered in here:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HCtfYF3ITGE" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Wow, that was almost airshow-worthy stuff right there.

I saw a guy start a mig before on youtube and litterally to get the thing started you just turned all the switches and knobs to the "On" position

As an isolated moment in time, that’s really quite beautiful.

Sad story.

On the other hand, I’m headed through SeaTac 2x in the next couple of weeks. Wonder if they’ll make any changes to security. Sounds like he was a mechanic for Horizon who grabbed a plane that was already out of service.

This sounds like a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. But here we see the real world aftermath. In the movie he’d be flying to get away from the bad guys and have jumped out with the beautiful woman while his plane and the bad guy’s plane crashed. Life isn’t quite so simple.

Meh, it's been done before:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AaA7kPfC5Hk" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The autopsy will show that he lost control of his bowels at that particular point in time.

It's a good thing that this guy was just suicidal and didn't decide to take people out with him. You know that al-queda is taking notes, which likely means that we'll have slowdowns in aircraft turnarounds going forward.

Not sure this qualifies as going out "like a champ." This was a dumb move that wasted a lot of other people's money and put a lot of other innocent people at risk. I see no inspiration in his decision whatsoever.

Hope Joe Seahawk is ok, haven't seen a post from him in a while. :hmmm:

Looks like he nailed the landing though:

https://storage.googleapis.com/afs-p...5ba71/800.jpeg

haha, damn, that was close

It would really stink if you happened to be camping in that particular spot. You'd be relaxing, enjoying nature, and then "WHAT IS THAT PLANE DOING?!?!?! AAAAAAAAAAAAUGH?"

I ended up finding it interesting after spending more time researching the story. Sad still, though.

That's what Rich had called it prior to trying it - but it wasn't near close to a text book barrel-roll. At least if we're talking about the same video.

wonder how he crashed - if he took it down or ran out of fuel, or passed out? I haven't seen that mentioned - I'm assuming ATC lost contact with him near the end.

Loooked more like a split S to me

Wish he would have just brought it back. Today I doubt it would have had the possible outcome of this “returned” Scooter from my sister squadron ( BlackSheep of VMA 214) by a Marine mechanic back in the day:

https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/th...awk-1745015819

“After trying to apply to the Israeli Air Force to fly fighters, Howard Foote Jr. went on to become a civilian test pilot and engineer, working on various projects over the years, including a microwave airplane concept and projects for NASA.”

Though an old saying may apply, “a smoking hole is a small price for a shit-hot maneuver”

10.0 10.0 10.0

Sent from my 9+ using Tapatalk

By hitting the ground. See above.

A split S changes the direction of travel.

I wish you'd been with him as a passenger.

That's not very nice.

I think he was speaking to cause, not effect.

Yes, I know.

Ah, you were trying to be funny. Oh, carry on...

The more you think about it...does this story really add up? Sounds a little fishy to me, is all I'm saying.

Similar maneuvers in similar aircraft have been done before, but rarely, and only by professional test pilot-level pilots with sophisticated knowledge of load limits, flight speed, etc. We're supposed to believe that some crazy maintenance worker - with no previous flight experience except for video games - commandeered this large commercial turboprop, took off all by himself, gave nonchalant, surreal, borderline humerous commentary about the whole experience before executing a textbook-perfect barrel roll to within feet of Chambers Bay before offing himself because he just now realized he had a "few screws loose"?

Right...

Did one of those F-15s take that plane down? And if so, why? And who was really flying it?

Nice. I figured that they put on the burners. I'm sure that woke some people up. I've spent many days and nights in Vancouver WA and they do like going vertical out of PDX.

:tinfoil:

I had an office at Langley AFB for a couple of years and Tuesdays were very fun, the F15's demonstrated that 1.29 TWR. As a Navy guy who lived just a few miles from Oceana, grew up a Tomcat fan (who wasn't?!?!?!), it was still cool to see. But the Tomcat's (B&D's) 1.08 just wasn't the same as the 15's 1.29. I guess when your carrying 5K more fat (for obvious reasons), and each engine is ~1.5K weaker, that costs you .21 of TWR.. Either way, they both put out some wonderful thunder, but advantage AF...

That being said, my sister's new house is now pretty close to Fentress, so a few weeks back when we were visiting the younger son and I got to spend an afternoon and and evening watching the 18s do their thing. Very cool and never gets old.

I would have been listening to this...

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MfmYCM4CS8o" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

He died doing what he liked to do?

Having a shattered windshield and the ground hit you in the face?

VGs man, they can simulate anything these days

Get over it dude, you're mega jelly