A scary situation occurred on Friday night when a plane was stolen from the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The airplane was stolen by an airline employee who performed stunts with the plane. F-15 fighter jets were scrambled and chased the plane before the stolen Sea-Tac aircraft crashed.
A mechanic at the airport stole a Horizon Air plane, which is a division of Alaskan Air. The Q400 is a twin-engined propeller plane made by Bombardier and looks like this.
This is a Bombardier Dash 8-Q400. It is the mainstay of Horizon Air’s fleet of regional aircraft. pic.twitter.com/ORSYFluCBs
— Jon Ostrower (@jonostrower) August 11, 2018
The pilot of the stolen plane, who was a 29-year-old ground service agent, was doing stunts in the air including barrel rolls. “Our information now is there was only one person on the plane. I understand the person may have been doing some air stunts or whatever,” said Paul Pastor, Pierce County Sheriff.
Full video form John Waldron on Facebook being shown on CNN #seatac pic.twitter.com/R98bl5uQBr
— Cameron Thomsen (@CameronThomsen) August 11, 2018
#BREAKING Alaska Airlines says it is aware of an incident involving an unauthorized take-off of a Horizon Air plane from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. This video was taken by a woman who lives south of the airport. She says this is the plane. (Courtney Jensen Junka) pic.twitter.com/Zh3E4aGfSk
— FOX26 News (@KMPHFOX26) August 11, 2018
Air traffic controllers attempted to persuade the pilot to land the stolen plane. The man identified as “Rich” in the transmission told air traffic controllers that he wasn’t ready to land as you can hear in this Twitter thread.
I'm listening through the archive of the radio chatter on the #seatac hijacking. Below are some of the clips. pic.twitter.com/ziBAYv7cgn
— Jimmy Thomson (@jwsthomson) August 11, 2018
“There is the runway just off to your right side in about a mile,” the air traffic controller informed Rich. “That’s McChord” (military airfield at Joint Base Lewis-McChord).
“Oh man, those guys will rough me up if I try and land there,” Rich replied. “I think I might mess something up there too. I wouldn’t want to do that. They probably have anti-aircraft.”
“They don’t have any of that stuff,” the air-traffic controller said. “We’re just trying to find a place for you to land safely.”
“I’m not quite ready to bring it down just yet,” Rich said. “But holy smokes, I got to stop looking at the fuel, because it’s going down quick.”
“Could you start a left turn and we’ll take you down to the SE, please,” the controller asked.
“This is probably jail time for life, huh?” said Rich. “I would hope it is for a guy like me.”
“Oh, Richard,” said the controller, “We’re not going to worry or think about that. But could you start a left turn please?”
“I’ve got a lot of people that care about me. It’s going to disappoint them to hear that I did this,” Rich said. “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.”
The major security breach caused flights to be grounded and Air National Guard F-15 fighter jets from Portland International Airport were scrambled.
Can confirm two F-15’s from @142ndFW flew over Gig Harbor after scrambling from @flypdx.
— Isaac ✈ 🇺🇦 Alexander (@jetcitystar) August 11, 2018
“It was low enough we could make out the Alaska face … so it was really low,” said witness Ken Schmidtke.
@KING5Seattle here’s a video of the hijacked plane and fighter escort from Steilacoom in the ferry line for anderson Island pic.twitter.com/8fgAUe05xv
— Kai Simpson (@Kai_AHS) August 11, 2018
The F-15’s followed the stolen plane for 45 minutes as the stolen plane did laps around suburban areas south of Seattle Puget Sound.
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
The stolen aircraft crashed on Ketron Island at around 8 p.m. local time on Friday in the Puget Sound waterway about 25 miles southwest of the airport. Smoke billowed from the fiery crash site.
https://twitter.com/mckenna_brown/status/1028126845860896768
Seconds after the plan crashed pic.twitter.com/SgxmAr66WG
— iRViNGTON BiLLSWORTH 🧜🏿♂️ (@iRVvyBaun) August 11, 2018
WATCH LIVE: SkyKING over plane crash on Ketron Island. Airport employee stole plane from Sea-Tac and crashed shortly after >> https://t.co/TAFsPYG2Ub pic.twitter.com/57XiUTXzTk
— KING 5 News (@KING5Seattle) August 11, 2018
The pilot is believed to be the only fatality from the crash. The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department said it was “not a terrorist incident,” the pilot was not “trying to damage anything,” but rather a “joyride gone terribly wrong.” Law enforcement is calling it a “suicide, single male.”
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that President Donald Trump was monitoring the situation. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will conduct an investigation into the incident.
“FBI is communicating w/local/state/federal partners, but it’s too early for us to put out details on the evolving situation. We frequently get involved w/aircraft-related matters, so we’re poised to act if info develops to suggest a federal criminal nexus,” the FBI said.
An Alaska Airlines spokesperson said the plane was in the maintenance area of the airport when it was taken and was not scheduled for any flights. Alaska Air issued a statement.
We've confirmed a Horizon Air Q400 that had an unauthorized takeoff from SeaTac around 8pm has gone down near Ketron Island in Pierce County, WA. We're working to confirm who was on board, we believe there were no guests or crew on board other than the person operating the plane.
— Alaska Airlines (@AlaskaAir) August 11, 2018
Horizon Air Chief Operating Officer Constance von Muehlen gave the following message:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=30&v=LM6zshBLSDg