must have been tense in the fighter jets. Shoot him down now or wait..Luckily the best outcome possible played out because he was never going to land that thing himself without slamming into a suburb

Well, I guess this puts to rest the neverending debate on "Could a simmer without prior piloting experience power up an airplane, take off and fly it?".

The way in which it ended, leaves the "Could he land it?" question open, but given how things have gone prior to that, I wouldn't rule that out...

14 minutes ago, Murmur said:

Well, I guess this puts to rest the neverending debate on "Could a simmer without prior piloting experience power up an airplane, take off and fly it?".

The way in which it ended, leaves the "Could he land it?" question open, but given how things have gone prior to that, I wouldn't rule that out...

Thats really what you took from this event/conversation?  

From everything I've read it appears he was a rampy. I'm puzzled by the barrel roll too, unless he was just lucky, that's not easy to do in a q400. From videos it's hard to tell if he just lost control or went into the ground intentionally. Reports say he was suicidal but his chatter was more rambling than dark.

Still, the major focus has to be how he got it started and off the ground with  no one stopping him. I find it difficult to believe it was just sitting there with the engines running.

Thankful he didn't hit a populated area.

Vic

I'll speculate that he could have landed on a runway if he had chosen to do so but he really just wanted to end it all. I always have some sympathy for suicides. It reflects very positively on him that he did not take the opportunity to go down in infamy by taking as many people with him as he could. The same cannot be said for other more qualified pilots who decided to take their own lives by plane crash.

The minimum wage comment makes me wonder if financial difficulty is part of the motive

Edited August 11, 20187 yr by Guest

1 hour ago, Woozie said:

or regular mental health checks for personnel with apron/secure area access.   

This came up with the german wings incident with pilot suicide. Its incredibly difficult to catch and diagnose

On a slightly different example the amount of pilots we have to refer to counselling and psychotherapy after they retire is quite alot , especially if they have been ex military and then come to us till their 55 then go contracting out in the middle East 

In short for all of their lives they've had everything done for them. Meals on board, meals in hotels, taxis here, taxis there.  Never having to in a way think for themselves. I mentioned before about captains losing it because the hotels didn't have eggs for breakfast

For your whole life being given a piece of paper each month telling them where to be at what time and where'd to go.  Once they get to work following  the same Check lists for 45 years day in day out. 

Then suddenly being told thanks alot off you go.  Cook your own eggs,  dry clean your own clothes,  set your own wake up call, and enjoy the garden centre with roger. 

Like I said for a few they can't handle 'normal' life and end up being referred to a well being clinic in Brighton that Virgin and BA both use alot because it specilises in this type of issue

I know it's a world away from an engineer stealing a dash 8 but the point I'm making is its that life Isnt linear and its hard to diagnose a mental illness. 

When I was told how many retired and active crew we have in that clinic in Brighton I was shocked. 

 

Edited August 11, 20187 yr by tooting

31 minutes ago, kingm56 said:

Thats really what you took from this event/conversation?  

Yes, since fortunately nobody got hurt apart from the suicidal person.

Faintly amused by the number of people on this thread quite happy to speculate and talk very definitively about what software this gentleman may or may not have owned or had access to, who I am sure would be very quick to criticise the media if there were headlines about the role of desktop flight simulators before any official source had confirmed that.

2 hours ago, w6kd said:

Imagine if this guy had evil intent, of the 9/11 variety.  That a ramp rat could jump in, start up and take off unchallenged is a real security problem.

Even without evil intent, it's a huge potential danger for a joyride if he had flown over populated areas, instead of mainly over water and then crashing into a more remote area. I wonder if that was intentional or just lucky for the people on the ground. 

At least any steps taken to mitigate this kind of thing, like yoke locks or wheel boots, will be on the ramp side and shouldn't make air travel more difficult for passengers (keeping fingers crossed). 

It's interesting that they scrambled the intercept out of Portland. NAS Whidbey Island is a lot closer (45nm to Seattle), but I guess the Growlers stationed there aren't ideal for air-air intercepts. IIRC, they only have a pair of AMRAAMs, not the sidewinders and guns on the F-15's out of Portland for close-range ID and intercept.

Edited August 11, 20187 yr by Paraffin

1 hour ago, skelsey said:

Faintly amused by the number of people on this thread quite happy to speculate and talk very definitively about what software this gentleman may or may not have owned or had access to, who I am sure would be very quick to criticise the media if there were headlines about the role of desktop flight simulators before any official source had confirmed that.

Agreed Simon. He obviously was able to run through the startup procs, etc but I think the investigation will find this was more due to luck than procedure.

Sadly, it appears to be the case that he displayed little flying skills for the type and certainly, it also appears to be a tragic case of suicide without ill intent meant to anyone else.

8 minutes ago, ganter said:

more due to luck than procedure

Luck? If he was that lucky he should have bought a lottery ticket!

There is no way this guy could have figured out how to get this atypical aircraft from cold and dark in a hanger to airborne without quite a bit of type specific knowledge. I'm sorry but that's akin to a monkey typing Shakespeare! (not quite but its a good illustration)

 

I asked a friend who is based there, she says that it was a ramp agent, not a mechanic.

Edited August 11, 20187 yr by SledheadAK

Everyone wants their fifteen minutes of fame, which it sounds like what this guy was seeking, and he is certainly getting it, sounds like he was also on drugs.  It bugs me that the media gives people like this lip service so more do it.  Sounds like it was his last hurrah, sick man, child actually....

As there's always a human behind such things:

He ran a blog, telling a bit about his life : https://richardrussellsite.wordpress.com/about/

And he even made a video story, showing him working as bagagge handler on Alaskan Q400's

RIP Richard Russell 

For those here that work for an airline in the RW, you can appreciate that fact that there is little I can say due to policies that apply in events such as this.  

It's been a very long night for all of us.

The employee in question was qualified in limited flight deck operations as part of his job duties.  APU operations were included along with a few other procedures as part of his aircraft tow training. 

Beyond that is speculation, but to start the Q400 engines beyond initial power-up requires little action.

I'm going to stop there.