Someone stole a Q400 from Seattle?

[RobertS975]

OK, it is still amazing to me that this fellow could successfully perform the acrobatic maneuvers that we see in the film. I don't care about how realistic the simulators are! The G forces are not experienced in the simulator. Or was he simply lucky not to have met the ground during that loop?

[gr4techie]

Originally Posted by airtrumpone

This is actually easier than most non pilots might think ie unauthorised taking and flying a commercial aircraft, I was once asked by ops to carry out a taxi test of regional jet and whilst I’m at it can I do a LVO check on the aircraft, could I sort it out locally with my regional airport?

So turned up ordered some fuel booked out VFR would need to do 3 approaches the 3rd a full stop landing, so off we go told by ATC it would be 30 minutes before they could let us fly the ILS due inbounds so we cleared off to the North at 2000 - 4000 over the Penines some of it just over 1500 agl then back round for the approach, not a single person from company had spoken to the airport or handling agent. 50 minutes free flying VFR in a regional jet and great fun.

i know of ex mil guy that told me that some guys borrowed a Hurcules for night out in the ME (not RAF) and then adjusted the fuel used over the next 6 official flight to cover the fuel used on the jolly, nearly got caught tho because one bod onboard didn’t make the return trip due falling asleep with a prostitute ����

he was then then in another country with no papers.

There's also the C-130 Hercules that was stolen from RAF Mildenhall in 1969 by a homesick USAF Sergeant. Interestingly theres conspiracy theories whether he crashed it in the English Channel or he was shot down by QRA?

[Toryu]

Originally Posted by PukinDog

What's with all these fallacies? Your false dichotomy was answered in my first post; If he felt he needed to self-delete I'd rather he had found a handy cliff to jump off or simply hanged himself from the rafters of his garage, endangering nobody else and requiring the fewest number of people to clean up the mess. He had a slew other choices to go out out quietly that didn't involve operating a large piece of fast-moving machinery with reckless abandon around other people.

One thing's for sure, if he had unintentionally T-boned another aircraft full of passengers during or after takeoff, or at any point for any reason lit-up and char-broiled a restaurant full of people eating their meals, the empathy bandwagon for this suicidal plane-thief wouldn't be rolling so heavy with "poor troubled soul his intention wasn't to hurt anyone" platitudes re mental health.

He wasn't a pilot trained on the aircraft, and with no training to operate/manipulate things automatically or almost subconsciously without thinking, in order to start engines, taxi, and get airborne/climb out he was acting consciously in a planned fashion. At all those points he knew what he was doing could have produced balled-up flaming metal that could affect/hurt others. Therefore, his voicing a supposed concern about "others" to the controller once airborne are meaningless words at that point if it comes to making an assumption about the actual level that existed when he spoke them. And again, if he had really meant them when he spoke them he would have speared it into the waves where he could see to be certain no others were instead of the woods where he couldn't.

The funny thing is: Even though he didn't have any training, he pulled it off and managed to stay true to his intent, not hurting anybody.
That suggests that not only is flying the airplane a lot easier than you make it to be (which it is), but also flying the good old "see and avoid" VFR-thingy mostly works.
He did have some help by ATC clearing the airspace, which also was easier by him adressing them and stating his intentions.

As others have already mentioned: Your understanding of mental illness and suicidal people is less than basic.
Using clever-sounding vocabulary like dichotomy can't put a band-aid on that.

[gr4techie]

Originally Posted by PukinDog

I don't feel sad. I feel relieved and very happy this guy didn't wind up killing innocent people on the ground or in another aircraft while he was helping himself to his self-indulgent, attention-getting method of suicide. On the radio he sounds like a typical Millennial YouTuber/Facebooker trying (and failing) to act nonchalant and witty for effect, otherwise why tune and keep his radio turned on talking with ATC if not to star in his own, final show. Perhaps if he'd said goodbye to his wife, family, and friends then quietly gone to jump off a cliff or string himself from the rafters endangering nobody else I'd feel a bit of sympathy.

But trying to make a big, self-narrated show out of it and using a stolen, recklessly-flown aircraft? no.

I actually know one person who attempted to commit suicide and another person who unfortunately did commit suicide.

Both were a shocking surprise to me, completely unexpected and were definitely not for attention. The attempted suicide said he knew something was wrong with him medically, he described it like there was a chemical imbalance in his brain that caused severe depression.

For all those on here that write "what about the innocent people", the attempted suicide told me that he didn't think once about how his suicide attempt would affect others, including the feelings of his relatives. Another person with depression told me that "other people didn't care about him".

Pukindog, do you have the social skills to work with other people, spot mental health issues and be able to resolve them? Your comments are no help to anyone what so ever and I find them quite ignorant and immature.

[Aerospace101]

why is no one considering the fact that this poor guy could have had his life saved by being talked down, even a controlled ditching? Just as a suicide jumper can be talked down from a bridge. There are 2 types of human communication, 1. A loving response or 2. a Cry for Help. When he started talking to ATC that was his "cry for help". There seems to be a number of pilot suicides, I'm surprised ATC dont have a speed dial to a trained negotiator or someone like Tony Robbins to at least try a therapeutic intervention.

[Vessbot]

For crying out loud, it's not rocket surgery to get an airplane upside down and then pull out of whatever follows... successfully or not. Why are people expecting there to have been any precision or skill about it? Yes it's just pure dumb luck that he had the altitude. No, someone who's literally suicidal would not need to check the airspeed/altitude gate before entering.

[HighWind]

Originally Posted by Aerospace101

why is no one considering the fact that this poor guy could have had his life saved by being talked down, even a controlled ditching? Just as a suicide jumper can be talked down from a bridge. There are 2 types of human communication, 1. A loving response or 2. a Cry for Help. When he started talking to ATC that was his "cry for help". There seems to be a number of pilot suicides, I'm surprised ATC dont have a speed dial to a trained negotiator or someone like Tony Robbins to at least try a therapeutic intervention.

He was not that stupid..
He knew that a point of no return was crossed when he pressed that start button, resulting in loss of job, some friends, and jail time. And following jail time it would be difficult to get a good job again..
From that point the worst outcome would be to be captured alive...
He might have analyzed the risk of being stopped in his act before getting airborne, or ending in a ball of fire if the takeoff had failed.

[Mr Angry from Purley]

Originally Posted by Tommy Gavin

This is the end of the relaxed security we still have when flying domestic within the states... shoes and belts off from now on!

This chap had a Airport I.D. and was vetted every two years. What's that to do with shoes n belts I just don't know.
V sad news

[PukinDog]

Originally Posted by Toryu

The funny thing is: Even though he didn't have any training, he pulled it off and managed to stay true to his intent, not hurting anybody.
That suggests that not only is flying the airplane a lot easier than you make it to be (which it is), but also flying the good old "see and avoid" VFR-thingy mostly works.
He did have some help by ATC clearing the airspace, which also was easier by him adressing them and stating his intentions.

SeaTac has approximately 400,000 aircraft movements per year, about the 30th busiest in the world by that measure, or over 1,000 movements per day where he taxied and blasted-off unannounced. There are other airports in the area with their own mixed jet and light aircraft traffic as well the controllers may or may not be talking to. You talk to me about mental health yet come up with absurd statements like "the good old see and avoid VFR thingy mostly works" when the subject is a busy airport and terminal area. Worked for those people in Cerritos (among many others in other places) real well, didn't it? That crew, even with multiple, professional sets of eyes outside and with the controller's help, thought they were seeing and avoiding too right up until the one they never saw sent them and their passengers down into a residential neighborhood where besides the 64 in the aircraft, 15 more died as well.

As others have already mentioned: Your understanding of mental illness and suicidal people is less than basic.
Using clever-sounding vocabulary like dichotomy can't put a band-aid on that.

Your understanding of the ramifications and what happens to people during a runway incursion, midair, or flaming metal debris flung at high speed into unprotected people is less than basic. My guess is that you've never had to attend an accident site up close to witness or pick up the pieces. Mental health becomes immaterial when what holds it isn't on one's shoulders anymore and neither band aids or your attempts to poo-poo his reckless method can mend that.

Anyway, why are you jumping to the conclusion it was mental illness or depression that triggered Baron Von Rich-toffen to do what he did? Is it because you feel like you're some sort of expert? It's clear that you and those others you speak of fancy yourselves as such, but for all you or anyone else knows yet he could have had a brain tumor or other physical disease that capsized his boat.

No matter how many mental health generalities and platitudes you repeat or how high you aim to seat yourself on a pedestal of "understanding the issue", the fact is you have absolutely no idea what was going on inside his head before or during this incident. You certainly can't divine it from what's been seen or heard. How do you know it was mental illness and not something done spur of the moment due to a shock or a sense of sudden shame from finding out, say, a wife cheating or a girl he met during one of his college classes the previous semester turns up with his out-of-wedlock baby conceived during one night's drunk indiscretion? People over-react for those types of things all the time, believing the sky is falling and their life ruined so why live longer to face the consequences? Perhaps some test came back positive revealing a life-changing disease, or his wife announced she was leaving him over his porn addiction. Maybe he'd gotten into some crystal meth or drank at work and simply acted under the influence, maybe not, but there's plenty of things in life one can commit suicide over that don't fall into the category of "mental illness" yet can still cause someone to decide at that moment it's not worth living. People who've been married for decades and decades sometimes do it after their lifelong partner dies and the other has already decided when the time comes they aren't going to go on without the one they lost. Others do it because they want to follow their "soul mate". Point is, killing oneself in and of itself doesn't automatically indicate a "mental illness".

I remember a guy in the news, a drunk biker, racing up and down a small town main street during the middle of the day, killing a little girl who stepped out in front of him. He stopped, got off his bike and after he saw and it sunk in what he'd done witnesses said he walked right back to his motorcycle, took a pistol out of his saddlebag and shot himself in the head right then and there in the street near her. Even as drunk as he was, apparently he was sober enough to decide he couldn't live with what he'd done through his own recklessness and stupidity. Mentally ill? No, in that case he was just acting as his own judge, jury, and executioner.

So even though you and the others you referred to have decided for yourselves his method (stealing and blasting off out of SeaTac) is "not his fault" and therefore beyond reproach or criticism due to the "mental illness" you assume he had so as to begin your White Knighting crusade in his name, it's merely nothing more than your guess and it's as speculative as anyone else's.

​​​​​​gr4techie
​I actually know one person who attempted to commit suicide and another person who unfortunately did commit suicide.

Both were a shocking surprise to me, completely unexpected and were definitely not for attention. The attempted suicide said he knew something was wrong with him medically, he described it like there was a chemical imbalance in his brain that caused severe depression.

For all those on here that write "what about the innocent people", the attempted suicide told me that he didn't think once about how his suicide attempt would affect others, including the feelings of his relatives. Another person with depression told me that "other people didn't care about him".

Pukindog, do you have the social skills to work with other people, spot mental health issues and be able to resolve them? Your comments are no help to anyone what so ever and I find them quite ignorant and immature.

Knowing someone who's attempted suicide doesn't make you special or give you special insight into what makes the 30.000+ in the U.S. who succeed at it every year do so. Almost anyone reaching a certain age has known both, myself included. Just like experiencing bouts of depression doesn't turn one into an instant expert on why others experience it, it certainly seems to make some believe it does. If it floats your boat to assume these weighty matters are just simply above or beyond my experience because in this particular case I weigh the very real potential for deadly harm to others he created on his quest for self-harm above his transmitted ramblings and his own life he chose to take, it's your prerogative.

However, if you or anyone is seeking help for their mental illness or depression on this Pilot's forum website, they are most definitely in the wrong place. You think a thread discussing a guy stealing, joy-riding, and performing a lousy airshow in a Q400 should be turned into some sort of spontaneous, mental health group therapy session? Apparently, you and many others believe it should be. I find that immature. Only immaturity would lead one to believe that one could find "help" or enlightenment for complicated, suicide-level mental health issues from a bunch of strangers on the internet, and it's ignorant to believe so.

[Photonic]

Originally Posted by CargoOne

Poor chap. Let’s think if there anything positive about what he did. And I think certainly is: he has demonstrated that piloting complex modern airplane is not as difficult as pilots & unions want general public to believe in order to support the salary & perks level. Lots of us within the industry knew that for decades but he made it public knowledge.

You don't pay the pilot to take off and get into the air. You pay the pilot to arrive at the destination and land the plane full of pax safely. This event demonstrates nothing in that respect.

[16024]

Photonic, you beat me to it. If all you need me to do is start her up and pull the stick back then I can relax all about those sim checks and home study. Claim back the price of a small house that it cost me to qualify in the first place. Ignore the compo minded complaints from the SLF.

And:

why is no one considering the fact that this poor guy could have had his life saved by being talked down, even a controlled ditching? Just as a suicide jumper can be talked down from a bridge. There are 2 types of human communication, 1. A loving response or 2. a Cry for Help. When he started talking to ATC that was his "cry for help". There seems to be a number of pilot suicides, I'm surprised ATC dont have a speed dial to a trained negotiator or someone like Tony Robbins to at least try a therapeutic intervention.

Did you listen to the tapes? If ever there was a calm attempt at building a connection it was from that controller. I hope he is recognised for this.

[Murexway]

Originally Posted by growahead

If you haven’t been in a dark place yet, you will probably get there sometime. Hopefully, someone will give you a hand back up.

Everybody is human and life isn't always fair. But fortunately for us all, "dark places" don't cause the average person to endanger hundreds or thousands of innocent lives. I'm growing tired of the current notion that, "There, but for the grace of God, anybody could have done (whatever)". "Give you a hand back up"? How about accepting responsibility for your life and picking yourself back up? Every adult is responsible for their own life and their own actions. If he had headed toward downtown Seattle or any densely populated area, he should (and would) have been shot down - period.

[RenegadeMan]

Originally Posted by keeprighton1974

Dare to question the official story of an event and have your sanity questioned. Please don't send me to Room 101.

I'm going on a FlyBe Q400 later this year. I'll be sure to tell the pilots how easy their job is and how unnecessary their training is. I mean, any old Tom, Dick or Harry could do it on the first attempt. Gimme a break

Why don't you give all of us (who just can't stomach more ridiculous conspiracy 'nutters' as someone above's said) a break! Why is there such a penchant for some people commenting in Internet forums to jump to conclusions there's an "official story" and then the real story? What is it that has you automatically assuming that "you'd have to be born yesterday" to believe "what we're being told"?

Do you really think a conspiracy is at work here? For goodness sake, a man is dead, his family is grieving, an ATC controller probably now needs counselling help too, co workers and colleagues have been left shocked and upset and it was all live broadcast across an open frequency (now reproduced on dozens of websites) so just "how" has there been a cover-up or an "official story" different to what's happened at work here? He clearly knew how to start the aircraft (you can learn this stuff easily - it's called "The Internet"), taxi it to the active runway and take-off. His maneuvers were likely pulled off with a combination of practise from flying a Q400 sim on his home computer and some "dumb-luck" that had him just level out before hitting the water. The final crash may have been another "barrell roll" that didn't work out.

None of this means

I'm going on a FlyBe Q400 later this year. I'll be sure to tell the pilots how easy their job is and how unnecessary their training is. I mean, any old Tom, Dick or Harry could do it on the first attempt

is even remotely a valid comment and in fact it's totally ridiculous because being a professional pilot executing successful flights in all types of weather day-in day-out is a whole other skill level than what happened with this guy using an aircraft for suicide.

You really need to "think" and use some reasonable logic before commenting with such trash.

(Forum admin would you please stop deleting my post with no email explaining why!!! If there's something terribly wrong with it please advise but just deleting it with no word or explanation is hardly in keeping with this forum's openness)

[gpzz]

I was in a similiar place once and when the brain goes awol it is utterly horrendous..no sense to it at all. Goodness knows what level of irrationality it takes to jump in front of a train.

This guy had no fun at all despite his tone in the 90 mins he was airborne nor was he showing off but he was seeking help..he just went about it in the most awful way possible, with only one possible outcome.

Puke. Your inability to understand this is totally ok..most people struggle with it too but take it from me when it happens normal thinking which we all think we are entitled to goes out the window, big time.

Hope the ATC gets a good de-brief and the support he deserves...hell of a job he did, nothing else he could have said.

[admiral ackbar]

Originally Posted by airsouthwest

According to ITV News he used a pushback tug to bring the aircraft to the runway, which doesn't make sense to me how would he have released and set the parking brake in the cockpit when he would of had to be in the tug at the same time!

3rd time posting this as both other attempts seem to have been deleted by the time i log out and come back in a few hours later.

Umm not a pilot but someone who is posted this sequence on another board: release parking brake, get in tug, push back, get out of tug, set parking brake, detach tug. Am I missing something? Maybe your post is being deleted because there is no issue.

[Simplythebeast]

Originally Posted by Timpsi

I was wondering the same thing, thank you for clearing that up. So there would not have been sufficient time to do anything about it probably, and even if there was, what could anybody have done when he's in an airplane heading for the Runway...

Block the runway?

[Vessbot]

Originally Posted by Simplythebeast

Block the runway?

Pretty much the only thing I can envision that could work in time is for the tower controller to push the button that makes the barricades pop up out of the pavement at all the hold short points.

[RoyHudd]

Unbelievable rubbish posted here. Easy to fly accurately and land a Q400? With failures? Absolutely not. Training, testing required.

Richard Russell showing off? Stupid, and wrong. No showboating there. He was out of control.

Media conspiracy? Not at all. No evident suppression of facts.

And maybe worst, the idea of this guy being deliberately irresponsible? He was suicidal. Had he been involved with trucks or busses, he would probably have driven off the side of a mountain road.

[edi_local]

Originally Posted by Vessbot

Pretty much the only thing I can envision that could work in time is for the tower controller to push the button that makes the barricades pop up out of the pavement at all the hold short points.

A long shot, but airport fire trucks could be rushed to the scene to prevent the plane from moving. At a low taxi speed, a firetruck placed in front of the aircraft would surely prevent it from being able to move forward. This is an uninformed opinion, I have no knowledge of this area, hence why I merely suggest it. It would probably only really work on a smaller plane anyway.

I guess not too many people would be willing to go near an active plane?

[core_dump]

Originally Posted by Aerospace101

I'm surprised ATC dont have a speed dial to a trained negotiator or someone like Tony Robbins to at least try a therapeutic intervention.

Tony Robbins the "life coach"? Surely you can't be serious. I mean whenever the cops have someone cornered who is threatening to blow themselves up, they always call in a worthless "life coach", right?

What this kid needed was a short therapy session with Dr. Sidewinder.