Sky King: The 2018 Sea-Tac Stolen Q400 Incident | The Untold Story of Richard Russell

Tom (0:00): Engine spooled. Checklist complete. Welcome to the Black Box Aviation Podcast, where the stories behind the headlines get unpacked by the people who actually fly the damn plane. Hosted by Tom, a former military pilot turned airline airline and cargo, and Mike, a lifelong civilian flyer now flying left seat as an airline captain. It's aviation news, insider insight, and real pilot perspective.

Unknown Speaker (0:24): Strap in.

Mike (0:27): Hi there, everybody. And welcome to another episode of Black Box Avion podcast. We are gonna do a hot topic today on the stolen jet Sky King. This is 2018 Horizon Air Bombardier q 400 at Seattle C Tech. I'm a co host Tom, joined by Mike.

Unknown Speaker (0:42): Mike, what's happening?

Unknown Speaker (0:43): What up, Tom?

Mike (0:44): Hey, man. Let's just go through this real quick, and well, not quick, but this is quite a story. One that made headlines sorta kinda in 2018, but it fizzled out again, but it's now back as a major movie on Hulu. It's a documentary, so we're gonna do a standby standby for a movie review on that, because we're gonna check that out on another episode, maybe a joint venture with Lower the Bar podcast, because this happened in Seattle, where they broadcast live from in on their show, so I think it'd be a unique perspective as far as it goes for what they thought about it in their life, because this plane flew over their city. It flew over their neighborhoods, and ends up crashing in Puget Sound, in an island in Puget Sound.

Mike (1:22): So I think that'd be interesting for a perspective from their side of it. But this is 08/10/2018. It's a Horizon Air, which is a regional subsidiary of Alaska. Are they wholly owned by Alaska? Do you know?

Unknown Speaker (1:34): I think they are.

Unknown Speaker (1:35): Think they are, but I I I just I think they are, but I'm not a 100% sure on that. I can look it up.

Mike (1:41): Yeah. So they have q four hundreds, and they have Embraer one seventy fives. They don't fly the q anymore, I don't think, but they kinda phased them out, so they think they just have one one seventy fives they fly for Alaska. But this is a can a dash eight. Essentially, it's a modified dash eight.

Mike (1:56): It's q 400, so it's longer, and it's out of Seattle. So the jet gets stolen by a 28 year old man named Richard Russell. He's a Horizon Air ground service agent, and he has no piloting experience, and he gets this airplane into the air. So about 07:30PM in Seattle, the ground controllers notice that aircraft is taxiing out of the Plane Cargo 1 hangars, and they're not in contact with this aircraft. And Plane Cargo 1 is kind of like a parking area to the I guess it's to the north of the west or Northeast of the field.

Mike (2:27): He ends up taking off to the south on 16 Center, but that's where we park with my company and the cargo ramp there. And like, I taxi in and out of there all the time, and I didn't even think about this until this came up with this show, but, you know, that area is it's kinda controlled. You talk to, like, a ramp frequency, and then you come out, and then I mean, you pretty if you're taking off South flow, you talk to Tower, like, right away. Don't even talk to ground, because they're just you're pretty much at the hold line for one six left. Yeah.

Mike (2:53): But he takes off on one six center, which is kinda interesting, because Seattle's pretty busy. There's three runways, and there's a lot of traffic landing there and coming around, so you gotta pay attention. And there's a heavy aircraft, there's small aircraft, all kinds of stuff going on in in Sea Tac. So, know, it's kinda curious, but he comes out of the plane car o one, and he takes off on 16 center. So he had to cross one six left, is the normal departure runway for that side.

Mike (3:21): And they're normally a south flow as well. Witnesses report that the tires were smoking on takeoff. And I try to see if this was issue with, like, the rudder pad or if you took off with the parking brake on. You ever heard of people trying to do that, Mike? No.

Mike (3:37): Now and again, are you you hear that? Or they usually land with the parking brake on, not takeoff.

Unknown Speaker (3:41): I know. Yeah. Because I don't know how you would taxi it out. I mean, you would I don't think that I can't imagine that's what it was.

Mike (3:48): Yeah. So they they think that that's not the case. He must have been he's not a pilot, so he's pushing the rudder pedals, and he must be hitting the toe brakes. We kinda talked about that in the last episode.

Unknown Speaker (3:58): Yeah. He probably didn't have his feet on floor, you know, and he had his he was tapping the toe brakes a little bit, would be my guess. I would not think it was a parking brake. That doesn't

Unknown Speaker (4:05): Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (4:05): This job at all.

Mike (4:07): And that's what you have. And actually, some other people call it out on the ATC. Because everybody starts seeing this guy go, and they're like, what? Who's that? And he cuts people off in line because the jets come out of the terminal ramp, and they're taxiing north to take off on 16 Center 16 to the south.

Mike (4:22): And all of a sudden, this guy comes out of nowhere, and you know, like, you hear other airplanes calling for taxi, and hey, you'll be number two, you know, or give way to the horizon or whatever it is, and that doesn't happen. This guy just he just comes out and goes for it, and he takes off. And so as soon as that airplane gets airborne, they don't know what to do, and if you're air traffic control, Mike, and you just had an unauthorized departure in an airliner, what are you kinda thinking about?

Unknown Speaker (4:53): Well, especially post 09:11. Right? So you're thinking terrorism. It's gotta be where you go.

Mike (4:57): Yeah. It's gotta go that way. It's just this is what you have to do. It's just standard procedure. And they they end up doing that.

Mike (5:05): It takes a little bit of time when it switches over to approach frequency departure. So the ground tower's talking like they're they start calling each other on the landlines, that's how they talk to each other. They call each other. They have, like, direct hotlines, and they end up calling Washington to tell them what's going on and what's gonna come back to is NORAD's gonna get involved. And NORAD's a North American aerospace defense command.

Mike (5:29): They handle pretty much all defensive aspects of, you know, detecting and responding to air attacks, track potential missile threats, and they monitor some maritime activity too. But they're the ones that are gonna scramble fighters, and they end up scrambling two f 15 fighters from the Portland National Guard. And they're armed, man. They got they got sidewinder missiles on them. They're air to air missiles, and they they can take them out.

Mike (5:55): So, like, what happens which is interesting that that I thought about this from my side. So when I was in the p three squadron, we definitely weren't armed on the ready, but we would stand a ready alert airplane for whatever reason. It was in must have been like in the NORAD guide that you had to have x amount of planes on standby or, you know, in a ready status. And we were ready for airplane out of Brunswick, Maine, so you would have to have the airplane airborne in four hours. Now that's a long time compared to scramble like a fighter that's got weapons on the wings, you know, but we I guess it would be like some kind of maritime interdiction that we would go out and do.

Mike (6:33): But if you were on the ready for airplane, that meant like you you could you had to be out of your phone ready, and you had to be, you know, not under the influence of alcohol. You had to be ready to go. Just like a reserve call, essentially, know, but it would mess up your world because if you got ready for for for, like, the weekend or Friday night, you'd be like, this terrible sucks, you know. But we would always goof around, like, no one and then the ready never launched. Like, never.

Unknown Speaker (6:59): Nobody ever got called. We're like, what what would we do if they launched the ready? And we'd one time, I saw this guy, Ned, I was like, what what would they do? I was new. I was like, Ned, what would how do you, like, launch the ready?

Unknown Speaker (7:09): And we were in, like, the office, and he goes, you go like this. He goes, launch the ready. And he starts yelling, and then he starts making a noise like a Klaxon, you know, like the old school World War one two. They're Yeah. He's yelling launch the ready.

Unknown Speaker (7:24): And everybody comes, like, from the hallways, like, what is going on? Like, what is why are you yelling that? He's like, that's how you launch the Ready. And I was like, yeah, that's how you do it. They're like, you're an idiot.

Mike (7:33): I totally fell for it, but that is not how you launch the Ready. Anyway, so they they call the the f fifteens from the Portland Air National Guard, and they also launched a KC one thirty five too to provide air fuel support. And these guys are kind of a long ways from Seattle. I'm like, if you were in f 15, that was the fastest way to get to Seattle from from Portland, Oregon.

Unknown Speaker (7:56): I mean, full speed ahead, I guess. What do mean the fastest way?

Unknown Speaker (8:00): Yeah. You're a supersonic aircraft. What are you gonna do?

Unknown Speaker (8:03): You're gonna go supersonic.

Mike (8:04): Heck, yeah. So they they lay down sonic booms, like, all over the Northwest, and and it's it's reported in there that people heard the sonic booms and are like, what is that? But those guys must have been pumped, like, a clear clear to supersonic, like, Roger that, sir. So they go supersonic and and get up there to to the airplane. Now this airplane is a de Havilland dash eight.

Mike (8:26): It's a q 400. I thought this this airplane is pretty cool. Have you ever ridden on one, Mike?

Unknown Speaker (8:31): I never have. I mean, I've seen them a lot, you know. You don't see them so much anymore, but I I used to see them around all the time.

Mike (8:38): Yeah. It's a 70 to 78 seat turboprop regional airline. It's kinda it's known for its cruise speed, so it can go fast, like 360 knots. It's got short takeoff, landing capability, and it's super reliable at 99.5%, and it's pretty primarily used for, like, short haul routes. It costs about $21,000,000.

Mike (8:55): Now I rode one two summers ago in we went from Dublin to Glasgow. It was really quiet. It was super comfortable. And, you know, I I don't know. I I like turbo prop and and things like that.

Mike (9:08): This this plane is kinda like close to my heart because it has the Pratt and Whitney turbo prop engines that were on the t 34, t 44, was a p t six. Now the q 400 has a little modified one. It's like a 1,200 or something like that, but the PT six is pretty cool. I love that engine. We had to, like, learn how to, like, build it.

Mike (9:27): Yeah. You flew it too. Right, Mike?

Unknown Speaker (9:28): I flew Yeah. Great Lakes on the beach 1900 and, yeah, like you said, back then learning turboprops, you had to learn how to build it. So it was completely different. But, yeah, I think it was it take a beating and keep on ticking. You know?

Unknown Speaker (9:41): I talked about it in the previous episode how the only time I ever shut down an engine it was a PT six, but it wasn't because of the engine failures because some mechanic left a wrench in there. But the engine kept working, you know, despite all the clanking, you know. So, yeah, it's a it's a good it's a good engine. It's a reliable motor for sure.

Mike (9:58): And we say turboprop, like, we throw that around, but essentially what it is is it's a turbine jet engine that essentially connects to, like, a propeller. And the PT engines are cool because they're a free air turbine. The airflow actually sucks the propeller into speed, and and then there's different weights and oil pressures that maintain that that prop speed based on what you need. But the free air turbine is a lot safer than, like, a direct shaft turboprop that was on the p three. You can get it some weird stuff with the turboprops that have, like, direct shaft with, like, pitch lock and different things like that that can really get you in into trouble quickly if they malfunction.

Mike (10:36): And they wouldn't malfunction that often, but the p three has had some issues where that engine would this is a different engine. It's an Allison engine that would malfunction. But the p t six, because it's a free air turbine, because it's so reliable, it really is a great a great engine, and that's what's on this airplane. Now the q 400 kinda has, like, a spotty safety record. It's super reliable when it when it goes, but there were some weird things that happened to it.

Mike (11:01): Obviously, the incident in Buffalo was a q 400, and that has really not much to do with the airplane itself. There was multiple pilot error in that that stalled the airplane. There was fatigue issues as well. Weather was an issue too. There and then there was another one in Papua New Guinea.

Mike (11:21): The the this Southeast Asian airline was able to pull the props into beta in flight, and beta is like like a zero or negative blade angle. Use it when you stop the airplane, you put the the props in a beta and it slows down like drag. When you're landing, that's what gives you that short landing capability. But you shouldn't be able to put the the props in a beta while you're flying forward. That's gonna cause a problem as well.

Mike (11:48): So but they mechanically fix that. Again, you know, these problems happen and and mechanically, fix them and everything like that. So the and again, it's not a factor in this airplane at all, but just kind of a history on the q 400. And you like Mike said, you don't see them that often out there anymore. I don't even know if anybody has them anymore, honestly.

Unknown Speaker (12:07): No. I think I think it got such a bad rep after Buffalo even though it was mostly pilot air. It just they both the airlines just kinda started getting rid of rid of it. And you'd think now with oil up as high as it is, it'd be a nice airplane to have, you know?

Mike (12:20): But Yeah. It's a per turboprops tend to bend burn less fuel, be more efficient. They just go a little bit slower. Oh, this one's pretty fast. Q's fast.

Mike (12:28): The Q's guy actually, had an issue with some of the nose landing gear would collapse as well. That didn't really cause too many problems, but I had a historical issue of the nose gear collapsing. But the q 400 is a because it's so new, it's a fully glass cockpit. And if you look at the glass cockpit of the q 400, like, it's it's a super modern, which kind of play plays a role in this because this guy, Richard Russell, has taken this airplane, he's not a pilot. So I don't know if that would would you think that would help somebody that's never flown before, Mike, or hurt you?

Unknown Speaker (13:00): I think it would help them because it's easier to read as opposed to, like, if you took the old school six pack. I'd like I I I stated before, I think training on an old school six pack is the way to go just for your piloting skills. But to just get into a plane with no experience, the modern day glass cockpit is gonna be way easier to visualize. You know, if I took my kid and gave him a glass cockpit, and a simulator and then took the sick, I think he would fly this the glass way better. Now his skills as a pilot might not get better, but

Unknown Speaker (13:32): just to

Unknown Speaker (13:32): it's like playing a video game at that point.

Mike (13:35): And that's gonna come into play in this this incident because Richard does not have any like I said, he's not a pilot. He doesn't have a private pilot's license, but he's fooled around on the video games. Now, I wish Jovan was in this. He would probably be having a heyday with it. He could tell us all about it now.

Mike (13:49): If you haven't heard of episode two, back in the studio, we talked about Jovan who builds, like, kind of his own home simulators and everything. But this guy, Richard, definitely fooled around with simulator stuff, and I'll say he learned to teach himself to do it. He taught himself some other things using some simulators, and we'll kinda talk about that a little bit later. But I think you're right, Mike. The glass kinda plays into this.

Mike (14:11): And the air traffic controller is gonna give him ask him to give him headings and things like that when he's airborne, and maybe that kinda helps him kinda figure that out. So let's talk about the crew. The crew of this flight is Richard Russell. He was a Horizon Air ground service agent. He was from Sumner, Washington.

Mike (14:27): He was part of a tow team, which repositions aircraft from the apron. He'd been there for four years, and he was described as a quiet guy. He was well liked by other workers, and we're gonna see later on in the communication of the air traffic control, like, this guy's got some gripes about life and about money and kind of, like, his place in society, and he's not really out to which he says multiple times, I'm not I don't wanna hurt anybody. So and he's quite a character, but he grew up in Alaska and then went to North Dakota. He played football there, and then he transferred to another Christian community college where he met his wife and started a bakery, and then they moved back to Seattle.

Mike (15:09): Mike, this guy's part of the tow team, like, I mean, I guess, kinda talk about, like, what what is a tow team? Like, how does that kinda

Unknown Speaker (15:15): work? Repositioning repositioning aircraft on the airport property. So it could be just pulling an airplane from the hangar to the gate or vice versa or just from one gate to another gate. A lot of times, you'll see it, you know, international arrivals have to go to customs. The next departure is domestic, so they'll tow it to a domestic gate.

Unknown Speaker (15:33): You know, it's just whoever however they need to move their plane for the operation on the ground. That's what it's just towing it like you tow a car.

Mike (15:40): What kind of qualifications would you need? Like, would you need to be able to, like, start the engines? Would you need to be able to

Unknown Speaker (15:46): need to be able to You you need

Unknown Speaker (15:48): to be

Unknown Speaker (15:48): able to work the brakes and you need to work the radios, but you don't typically need to start the engines.

Mike (15:55): Yeah. The maintenance guys are probably more inclined to have more Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (15:59): I will not say the tow team needs to start. I don't know what the qualifications are, but I don't see them having to start the engines ever. You just have to know how to work the parking brake like you mentioned earlier, and how to ride the brakes and stop the plane and work the radios.

Mike (16:11): And they would be super comfortable, like, in the cockpit doing, like, what they were trained to do as far as, like, turning the brake off, but kind of, like and what plays in this incident is that, you know, you'd be comfortable in the radios because you have to be able to get permission to move the airplanes. And normally, what they'll do is they'll position the airplanes, like, out on the cargo ramp, like, where this one was, and then they'll move it in, like, as the first wave of planes takes off. They'll replace those those planes on the gates, like, the second wave goes off. So you'll hear on the radios in the morning too, like, tug team one reposition from South Cargo Ramp to gate whatever. And, you know, you'll hear them get permission on the ground frequency.

Mike (16:48): So and and some of these people too have been doing this job for, like, forever, so they're really good at it. And and yeah. So they they are familiar with things, but not, like, super qualified at the same time. But they do have access for everything. So like he's probably has a badge that gets him access to any part of the ramp and things like that because he's gotta be able to move through the airport to get different places where these airplanes might be parked and, you know, he's gotta get in a vehicle or grab a tug or move a tow bar and things like that.

Mike (17:17): So but, you know, that's it's kinda interesting that they have. But the the one of the interesting thing too about this this guy, Richard Russell, and as far as him going in his his skills. And and, Mike, you probably seen this too. Was like, sometimes you get to know some of the maintainers that come on the airplane when you're parked at the gate. Like, you get to talking to them and, you know, you see the same guys over not all the time, but, like, sometimes you kinda, like, talk to guys

Unknown Speaker (17:42): I would say the small smaller airline, like Horizon at Seattle, you'd probably do see the same 10 people over and over again working the ramp.

Mike (17:51): Yeah. And and, you know, these guys this guy, Richard Russell, he he is definitely, like, a likable person. He's very con conversational. He has really good friends that work with him on the on the tow team. That comes out in the investigation, and so, like, he he's a friendly guy, and he's talking to the pilots.

Mike (18:09): And a SkyWest pilot said that he saw Russell one time and another man, they were pointing and flipping switches in a cockpit. And they were just talking to him, and he they said, what are you doing? He goes, oh, we need to learn how to use the APU, which is the auxiliary power unit, so they could tow it, which kinda Yeah. Makes

Unknown Speaker (18:28): because right? Power on the airplane. Yeah.

Mike (18:31): And this guy was pilot that saw him doing it said that once he confronted them, they were acting a little suspicious, and then they they beat it right away, like they just left. So it's gonna

Unknown Speaker (18:42): I mean, but you're also I still wouldn't say that's suspicious so much. I mean, other than now you're looking back on it knowing the outcome, you know, the but like, at the time, I wouldn't think it was suspicious.

Mike (18:54): And I had to say, like, I kinda thought the same thing too, Mike, because I've seen guys up there maintenance guys, you know, after you land, there's

Unknown Speaker (19:00): guys who I come up

Unknown Speaker (19:01): don't know who they are, and what when I land the airplane and I park it, especially if I flew across country I flew wherever, I'm tired, like, I don't care about this airplane. I'm leaving. That's what I care about. You

Unknown Speaker (19:12): know, and they have a they have a company ID and they have an airport badge and you're just okay, like, I mean, you can't even if you say, oh, can I see your ID? He had an ID to get there, so he'd just be like, oh, here it is, and you wouldn't think anything of it, like, it's not suspicious. Yeah, totally. So

Unknown Speaker (19:31): So another guy said that he was talking to Russell where this maybe this gets a little more suspicious, but again, it's an after the fact. So he was

Unknown Speaker (19:39): That's what saying.

Mike (19:40): Talking to the pilot about doing flows in the preflight preparation to one of the pilots, but again, Mike. But again,

Unknown Speaker (19:47): yeah, maybe he's got aspirations of becoming a pilot. Maybe he started flight school. I've talked to flight attendants, I've talked to rampers, and they're like, oh yeah, I'm I'm starting my private pilot's license, and they'll ask some questions. I don't think anything of it. I'm just trying to help them out.

Unknown Speaker (19:59): So that's not suspicious to me either.

Mike (20:02): You totally wanna be helpful because you're front and center. Like, it'd be like, I wanna be a Major League Baseball player and, hey, I get to interact with the second baseman for the Yankees, like, every day. Like, of course, I'm gonna ask him, like, how do you catch that ground ball? Like, what are you

Unknown Speaker (20:15): thinking about that bat doesn't mean he knows you're gonna go swing that bat against someone's head later on, you know, like, it's it's, you know, you're teaching him a skill because you think he wants to know the skill or but even then, like Javon said, when we talked about the flight simulators, he's taught himself how to fly multiple aircraft without ever touching the aircraft. So it's not even like, the secret's out. You can learn how to fly something without having to ask someone about their flows. So I wouldn't think anything of it.

Mike (20:40): I wouldn't either. And so this guy is asking about flows, and it comes out later that he that Richard was definitely using flight simulation software at home to work on flows and starting engines, which is like you said, Mike. Like, Jovan teaches himself to start engines. I remember Jo Jovan asked me a question in the in the Clarion, in the crash pad about the DC nine, because I was finding the DC nine, and he's like, what's this dude right here? And he had a DC nine cockpit and I was like, oh, it's this.

Mike (21:10): He's like, oh, that makes sense because he didn't know, but he knew I was a DC nine pilot, so he asked me.

Unknown Speaker (21:15): Well, between flight simulator and a YouTube video, you can figure it out. It's not rocket science. It really isn't. So No. Even when I

Mike (21:21): was going to school for the MD 11, there's videos from like I think it's like World Airways, like from the nineties of a guy doing cockpit setup on a MD 11, like Sure. It's there. Like, it's totally out there.

Unknown Speaker (21:32): So the hard part's access to the plane, which we've already talked about, he had, and he had it legally. It wasn't like he, you know, obviously he didn't have access shouldn't have had access to that plane at that time, but he there's nothing to prevent him from walking over

Unknown Speaker (21:46): Yeah. So like, what's a flow? You wanna talk about a flow, kinda what that means?

Unknown Speaker (21:50): It's just like what you would do to do certain stages of the flight, whether it's the pre flight flow, or like a takeoff flow, or what it's just what you do, so that you don't you kind of naturally learn a movement, so it's called a flow that you know what switches and buttons and panels to look at and then you would back it up with a checklist to make sure you didn't miss anything. But a flow would just be like kind of like your natural way you learn something. You know, how's your flow of the day? How what's your flow to getting dressed? How do you put your pants on and then your socks or do put your socks on before your pants?

Unknown Speaker (22:21): Everyone's got a different flow. I mean it's true, right?

Unknown Speaker (22:24): Usually the same, right?

Unknown Speaker (22:25): Yeah, but for that person it probably is the same, you know? Yeah, is. And that's what it is. I mean, it's like, did you turn on, you know, when do you turn on the nav light? When do you turn on this?

Unknown Speaker (22:34): When do you turn on that? And and it's just a flow to make sure everything's done prior to flight or after flight or whatever stage you're in.

Mike (22:41): Yeah. And if the captain says, like, start one, then and this is just general. I don't even know. But you turn a switch and it might kill something. You might need to flip the bleed air, and then you're gonna reach down and then go in it.

Mike (22:53): So you do that Every point. Those portions. Yeah. You do those steps to to get the engine started. That's just what you do.

Mike (22:59): So, yeah, that's what a flow is and and that's what he was asking questions about. So anyways, Richard, let's go back to him. He's got the jet in the air and the air traffic controllers talked to NORAD, and there are f 15 screaming towards CEATEC, and they're concerned because they don't know. And it takes them a couple times to reach out and and talk to him, and which I think is interesting because he eventually starts talking on ground, and he's a little confused about who he's talking to. But air traffic control is pretty direct about who they are, and he's inquisitive too.

Mike (23:34): He asks him, you know, oh, you're the departure controller, and he calls them like the FAA guy, and then they start building like a rapport with them, and they're like, you know, kinda like, what's your intention? But first, they find out his name, and then they start looking him up, you know, And they ask him what his intentions are. And right off the bat, he's like, I don't wanna hurt anybody. And he's like, I'm just kinda out here to sight see and and see the sights. And it kinda doesn't have an agenda that he's talking to him about.

Mike (24:04): But, you know, so they they reach out to him on on the ground control, and then I think they start trying to talk talk to him on guard. But like, because he has experience working the radios, they're able to get him another frequency. And sometimes we call that a discrete frequency. Like Mike says, like, a switch to this frequency so everybody tunes that up to listen to it because they wanna hear what's going on. Especially in this case, like, I wanna know what was going on.

Mike (24:27): This guy just took an airplane

Unknown Speaker (24:28): from I'd probably be listening. I wouldn't talk on it. I wouldn't talk

Unknown Speaker (24:31): on it. No. Back to our

Unknown Speaker (24:32): meow conversation, I wouldn't be talking on it. Meow. But I would 100% be I would have it on, you know.

Mike (24:39): Yeah. So it but they're able to talk to him, and and that's his knowledge of working the radios versus someone that just took off, like, they would be really real this could be a whole different scenario if they never spoke to him, and he's just making these maneuvers out there.

Unknown Speaker (24:53): Yeah. They might be. Yeah.

Mike (24:55): There's two armed f fifteens out there. They didn't never green light the f f fifteens to to shoot him down, but

Unknown Speaker (25:01): They were

Unknown Speaker (25:01): there on standby. You don't know

Unknown Speaker (25:03): what he's gonna do. Yeah.

Mike (25:04): Yeah. And they get concerned because he starts talking about how he's a broken guy, and he says, I've got a few screws loose. I guess I never really knew it until now. But there's a lot of conversation. This the the air traffic control tapes kinda go pretty deep with this, and we'll talk about this more in the documentary review, and we kinda do the movie review coming up, but it really goes in-depth.

Mike (25:32): And the documentary is interesting because it lets the family listen to the tapes. Some of this is for the first time, but I don't know if that's true or not. But you you get a a picture of this and you kinda start seeing, like, he's got some edge of, like, paran paranoia that kinda coincides with, like, a little bit of a suicidal intent and he because he's talking about this is it, you know, he's not gonna go going on. But he's interesting too, Mike, as he keeps talking about the fuel. So they keep asking him how much gas he's got left because they wanna know how long this is gonna go on for.

Mike (26:01): And air traffic control is pretty good with him too as they start talking about maybe landing the airplane. And they get on his side, they're like, hey, man. Let's not talk about the negative things. Let's talk about getting you back on the ground. And they point him out to send him to McCord.

Unknown Speaker (26:15): And what do you say, Mike, when they tell him to land at the military base?

Unknown Speaker (26:18): I think it's like, that's where the guys with the guns are, those guys are gonna beat me up or something something like that. Yeah. He says they're gonna rough me up. Rough me up. That's Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (26:27): And

Mike (26:29): I mean, he's probably right. It's not gonna go smooth for him when he gets on the ground, but No.

Unknown Speaker (26:34): He's going to jail. Like

Mike (26:35): Yeah. But they're not gonna kill him, and they're gonna, you know, they're gonna get it sorted out eventually.

Unknown Speaker (26:41): If they wanna kill him, they would've shot him down already.

Mike (26:43): Yeah. And he says too to the air traffic controllers that he never because they're talking about landing the plane, maybe they could talk him through it. They eventually get a q 400 pilot on the frequency as well, which is awesome. The air traffic control is totally helping this situation. And the the q 400 and then Richard says, I never really practiced landing.

Mike (27:04): So his goal in the flight simulator stuff was to get it started and rolling, but he never really was working on coming back and landing. Maybe he could've had that as like a backup plan, maybe? I don't know. But he says that that's not his plan. But he he is able eventually to figure out some stuff when they they kinda give him some vectors and they say, hey, can you turn this heading?

Mike (27:27): And the air traffic control guy says, oh, he's like, well, I don't know what that means. That's that's mumbo jumbo. He's like he's like, look at here and then, you know, turn into his because he's actually doing a good job of, like, keeping the airplane level. He goes out to Ranir. He looks around the mountains.

Unknown Speaker (27:41): Yeah. He's sightseeing.

Mike (27:43): Yeah. He's totally sightseeing, and this whole commentary is going on. And so they it kinda they they start talking about directing him out towards the sound, because they know if they get him out towards the water and the ocean, the threat to civilian population goes way down. And they get nervous a couple times, so he talks about that being the end, and he never

Unknown Speaker (28:04): says find out that he's kinda disgruntled. You gotta think about the FedEx guy. Right? Like, my goal is to hijack this plane and crash into the FedEx headquarters. Like, maybe that's what this guy wants to do, you know, crash into as many Horizon and Alaska airplanes and stuff as he can because he's he's disgruntled with his pay and stuff.

Mike (28:21): He does that. I I've kind of glossed over that, Mike, but you're right. He makes a comment about not making minimum wage and maybe this will shed light upon that the

Unknown Speaker (28:30): for promotion and some things like that. So he's he's unhappy with his, you know, with his stage of life.

Mike (28:39): Which is really weird because at the same time he's talking about how he's got a lot of people on the ground that care about him. So, you know, they kinda you kinda play that to be like, hey, just get back on the ground and, you know, those people will be here for you and, you know, it's it's gonna be okay. But he

Unknown Speaker (28:54): he kinda should've been like should've been like, hey, if you land, you'll probably make a lot of money with Hollywood and you'll be alright, you know, like, because they would've been it I mean, they'd already made the documentary, but could you imagine if you successfully landed that thing?

Mike (29:05): Well, and he says that. Do you think if I get sitting back on the ground that the Alaska would give me a job as a pilot, and and the air traffic controller says, they'll give you a job doing whatever you want, like, anything, you know, like, this is a this would be a miracle. Like, this is this whole incident is so bizarre that if you got it back on the ground and we could laugh about this someday, it would be like, my gosh, you know, like, it'd be totally crazy. But he kinda says he says he wants to try a barrel roll and towards the end of the flight, he actually they're out there talking to him and be like, hey, what's going on? Where you at?

Mike (29:38): And he he executes the maneuver at that point. And it's on video, and you can watch him do it. And he goes into the barrel roll, and he executes it relatively well. And he pulls up about 10 feet from the water and comes back up again, and he gets back on the radio and it's like, oh, man, I just did a barrel roll and

Unknown Speaker (30:02): And he, like, didn't know what to do because he totally expected to die doing that. Now he's like, well, I didn't really plan to finish the barrel roll, you know, like

Mike (30:09): Yeah. They like, well, they're like, that's great. Like, now let's talk about landing. He's like, I I I didn't think there was gonna be anything after that. Like, that was it.

Mike (30:16): And later on, a Horizon pilot will say and some people that saw the maneuver like, we don't know how the wings didn't come ripping off the airplane.

Unknown Speaker (30:25): Well, at that point, the plane probably is totaled already, you know. I mean, it's probably not gonna fly again. I mean, I don't know sure. I'm not an engineer, but you do you pull those kind of Gs on it and it's probably it's probably gonna be grounded.

Mike (30:37): Yeah. And if you fly a barrel roll a barrel roll is exactly what it sounds like. If you just picture like a soda can and then take it like a pretend airplane and then just like run it like around the inside of the can, like that's a barrel roll. So you end up

Unknown Speaker (30:49): going like The max g's on that airplane, I'm assuming like other airplanes in the clean configuration, meaning the flaps are up, it's probably around two and a half. I know. So when he's pulling up 10 feet off the water, he's pulling more than two and a half g's, I bet.

Mike (31:02): I think so. So he's pulling more to the airplane. Yeah. Sure.

Unknown Speaker (31:06): And it doesn't mean the wings automatically snap at 2.6 g's. It just means it's never been tested at that point. At this point, he's a test pilot. It has never been pushed further than that. So Speaking

Mike (31:16): of which, have you ever seen the triple seven documentary where they show, like, it's the making of the triple? No. And then they take the Boeing says the wings will break at, like, some some degree, like, up. Something crazy, like, 30 degree, like, flex up. And then they keep bending the wings to see where they'll fail.

Mike (31:32): They fail at, like, 45 degrees. It blows the engineer's mind. They're like, I we can't believe that happened. They wanna see what happens and and it's just so like sometimes these airplanes are built way stronger than that.

Unknown Speaker (31:43): Yep.

Mike (31:43): Now that's great. The p three, they they always said the wings bar, oh, they're corroded. They're gonna break blah blah blah blah. I knew a guy that he he was doing a pilot trainer. They totally messed up and they went into a spin.

Mike (31:55): He pulls it out and they broke the wings bar and the plane held together, they brought it back. They g'd it like eight g's or something, and it still came back. Yeah. These airplanes are a testament of like what they can do on paper, what they can do in real life. So he's running out of gas and they're not quite sure what's gonna happen.

Mike (32:14): He's flying around. F fifteens are watching him. They they double check his fuel again, and then he ends up saying that he's got a so one of his engines is running rough, and he ends up crashing into Ketron Island, which is in Puget Sound. There's about 30 people that live there, and it's about he there's a fire afterwards about burns about two acres of land. He's the only fatality in the incident.

Mike (32:41): No one on the ground is hurt. The only accessibility to the Keytron Island is a ferry, and that runs four times a day, which actually limits the ability for the firefighters to execute a response to that, but it's not cited as a factor in the incident. Post crash investigation, the FBI stated that it completed its investigation. Terrorism was ruled out. Russell was not found to have acted.

Mike (33:06): He was found to acted alone, and he they decided that the final descent into Ketron Island was determined to be intentional and a suicide, and that was the manner of death. Interesting enough, Mike, I don't know if you know, but the only crime that he was charged with do you know what it was?

Unknown Speaker (33:22): Stealing an airplane, obviously.

Mike (33:23): That's correct. He was charged with theft of an airplane. That's the only thing he was charged with. Honestly, like, I think if he lands his airplane, maybe that's all he gets charged with, you know.

Unknown Speaker (33:33): And there's a lot of other stuff they probably would've attacked on.

Unknown Speaker (33:36): You think so? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (33:37): That would've probably the primary charge. You can't just Even if you have a pilot's license and you have legality to the airplane, can't just go take off without a clearance.

Unknown Speaker (33:45): I mean, he

Unknown Speaker (33:46): broke a lot of other, like, things, you know, like

Unknown Speaker (33:48): I suppose he did. Yeah. Like you said, maybe when they get it all sorted out, he becomes, like, a motivational speaker and

Unknown Speaker (33:54): I think about like the catch me if you can guy, you know, where he, you know, faked everything and then he ended up working for the FBI, you know, helping them out to solve those problems. And you know, maybe something like this, once he figured out his mental health issues and things like that, maybe he could've helped talk to other people that were having mental health issues. There's there's, you know, things like that. You just never know. There's we live in a we live in a country where for the most part, unless you're, you know, canceled, we have very forgiving people and, you know, who knows what could happen.

Unknown Speaker (34:28): So it's it's unfortunate and it's sad.

Mike (34:31): Yeah. I think a big kudos goes to Air Traffic Control in the situation. You'll hear the tapes, you should listen to them. They do an amazing job of communication, coordination with each other, as far as the safety aspect goes on the backside with the f fifteens that are scrambled, the situations happening at the airport, but also with Richard Russell who's flying the airplane. They do a great job.

Mike (34:51): I don't I

Unknown Speaker (34:52): should organize it, right, so that you can get talk them off the bridge, like literally and figuratively. You know, it's the same thing like in a hostage situation. You call in the experts that know how to talk to people and and talk them down, you know, and that's what they tried to do, and really, they personalized it long enough that he gained their trust. He did, you know, so

Mike (35:13): Yeah. There was huge stakes, like, every turn, like, there's massive stakes on the line for people on the ground, for that airplane, and they did a great job. At one point, he says, just whisper sweet nothings into my ear. He says that over the radio and the air traffic controller is like, I don't think I can do that. But really, he is doing that, you know.

Mike (35:30): I don't know what Richard was looking for in that scenario, but, like, the controller essentially was taking care of him by by talking in his ear mean,

Unknown Speaker (35:39): might have just seen how far he could push the controller, like, what what kind of crazy thing can I say to get him to, you know, I don't know?

Unknown Speaker (35:45): I don't know. Maybe he was amazed that the guy was so helpful and understanding, know, because that's how

Unknown Speaker (35:51): he He comes wasn't just like screaming at him and you know, hanging him at, you know, pitch

Unknown Speaker (35:56): Get down, fly on this airplane right now. No. Don't do that.

Unknown Speaker (35:59): He was super, like, hey, you know, what's what's your name? Like, how you doing? Like, what do you what do you think? You know, people here care about you. We want you to be safe, you know, you know.

Mike (36:09): And he's not the controller's not trained to do that, like, did that just off instinct, and that's the amazing part of it. I love controllers, like, I love to hear, you know, hear them on the ground, especially at nighttime that you're flying forever, there's no one on the frequency, and you just key the mic and go, you guys still there? And they're like, yeah, we're still here. When it's like I

Unknown Speaker (36:29): just and I mentioned it before, was like, when you asked me like, what do you teach your student or what what when I was teaching flight instructing, like not now, but like, what was the hardest thing for people to learn on the radio? It's just that you're talking to a person. You know, you think, oh, I'm talking to this FAA guy, you know, to quote to quote Rich, but it they're just people, you know, and once you realize you're just having a conversation with another person, one of your peers, it's really easy.

Mike (36:55): After looking at this incident, I think it's a great point to work on getting Ian back on the show and talk to him about this. Just I mean, there's so many other things we can talk to Ian about, LaGuardia crash and other things too, but to have him back on the show. And if you haven't heard our this episode, go back and listen. We last September, we talked to a live air air truck controller. So that's a great episode.

Mike (37:13): If you haven't heard that, go back and check it out. Some some security things in the aftermath that came this, they put some enhanced cameras over in cargo one. They changed some of the access and badging stuff that we talked about earlier to make it more restrictive, specific zones, and things like that for employees. They also wanted to do more training for employees if they notice something that somebody's saying something interesting that they shouldn't be talking about that to bring that up. And they also brought up some insider threat protocols, which is pretty much a big thing that you can do or, you know, it's super hard to prevent because there's so many people that are part of the airport infrastructure and the daily stuff that just make it happen from the guys that do the catering to the security.

Mike (38:00): I mean, there's just so many people

Unknown Speaker (38:01): We talked it. We talked about a lot of this stuff. Airports are busy places. There's moving pieces all over the place and safety is a huge thing when you're walking around a ramp because there's a lot of moving pieces and it's not always an airplane. So there's a lot of people that are required to be outside.

Unknown Speaker (38:18): There's a lot of people that have authorization to be outside, to be in and around airplanes. You know, hard to verify everybody, know. It's like trust but verify. You got to think, they got through security, they got to to this point, so they must be allowed to be here, you know.

Mike (38:34): Yeah. Their background checks and everything. They created a lot of, like, two man integrity stuff, so you needed two people to be at the airplane, so one person couldn't just be because you can see there's a video of of Richard taking the airplane. Like, he tows the airplane, he's got one of the engines running, and he runs up and jumps up through the cabin door, and then pulls it up on his own. So the act actually, him just doing it in general, like, I don't know, Mike, if you and I gave it a shot, we might just fall down and the airplane runs us over.

Unknown Speaker (39:03): But Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (39:04): The fact that he was able to hop on a moving airplane and pull, you know, it's even though it wasn't moving fast, it's still rolling.

Unknown Speaker (39:10): The engines are going

Unknown Speaker (39:11): Sometimes doors are hard enough to close when it stopped at the gate. Oh god. Yeah.

Mike (39:17): He's he's rolling and he hops into the airplane, which is just it's a feat an athletic feat in its own right that he actually did it. So it it was quite a thing. So anyways, NORAD also put in some stuff too about enabling air defenses to scramble fighter jets without needing a higher level authorization, which could have been a factor if this was more of an immediate threat because this kinda opened the door to things that they weren't hadn't quite thought about. So okay. We I wanna pitch this to Mike and I have both watched the documentary.

Mike (39:48): It's on Hulu. It's called Sky King. It's totally worth watching. Big in-depth description of this, and it's actually pretty touching. It's a it's a super sad culmination event, so you see his family and things like that.

Mike (40:00): We're gonna talk about this way more. Hopefully, we can get Lower the Bar podcast because they again, they live in that area, so we can kinda talk to them about what what was happening in that area at that time, what they remember about it, and what they think seeing the documentary too. Check us out though at the blackboxaviationpodcast.com. Hit us at the hotline, (203) 699-6792. Leave your name with that, or you send us an email, theblackbox01@yahoo.com.

Mike (40:26): Tell us what you think about this. Give us your own review, and then, you know, we can talk about that too. Questions, comments you wanna bring up, and we'll talk about that on on the hopefully, the Lower the Bar podcast or any if we don't do that with them, then we'll bring it up on a show next time and talk about it. Mike, anything I left out? Anything you wanna add here before we wrap up?

Unknown Speaker (40:44): We need to we need to get that podcast scheduled with them and get it now at this this hot kinda hot news back in the news, so let's try to knock that out in the next week or two.

Unknown Speaker (40:53): Podcast crossover event. It could be I should be an announcer on the side. Whatever. No. Thanks, Mike.

Unknown Speaker (41:00): Alright, dude. We'll talk to you later.

Tom (41:02): Later. You've been listening to the Black Box Aviation Podcast. Real pilots, real stories, and aviation news the way it's actually talked about in the cockpit. If you like what you heard, make sure to like, subscribe, and follow so you don't miss an episode. Until next time, keep the blue sign up, and we'll see you at altitude.