An airline employee at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport stole a Q400 on Friday night. The 29 years old employee was a ground service agent at Horizon Air, which is a subsidiary of Alaska Airlines. According to the news, the handler was suicidal. He crashed the plane nearly 30 miles away while fighter jets were chasing the flight. People who looked from the ground saw the plane taking loops and then diving before it finally crashed.
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
Air traffic controllers tried to help the pilot land safely. The rogue pilot was chatting with the officials during flight. According to CNN, when a controller suggested to get the pilot on the radio to help him control the aircraft. He said, “Nah, I mean, I don’t need that much help. I’ve played some video games before.” To this answer, the controller said, “Congratulations, you did that, now let’s try to land that airplane safely and not hurt anybody on the ground.”
He was talking about the beauty of the sights by going “so fast” and then decided to do a backflip on the plane. The man said, “I got a lot of people that care about me, and it’s gonna disappoint them to hear that I did this. I would like to apologize to each and every one of them. Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose I guess. Never really knew it until now.” He would have required TSA clearance to get into the aircraft, inside the flight deck. There were no security measures like “an ignition switch with a key” which would have prevented him from taking off.
Listen to the complete communication between the pilot and the air controller.
