A dangerous breach

Stolen plane is an aviation security wake-up call

Richard Russell brought heartbreak to his family and a wake-up call to the U.S. aviation industry when he stole a plane and took it on what would turn out to be a suicidal final flight.

Russell was working as a Horizon Air ground services worker on the tarmac at a Seattle airport when he stole a 76passenger jet and flew it for an hour before crashing into an island.

The episode showed that U.S. airports are still vulnerable to serious security breaches, though Russell was not a terrorist.

But Russell was clearly dangerously unstable and he was able to work in the vicinity of passenger jets and wait for the moment of his crazed act and then realize it, seemingly with no major obstacles.

We ought not, as a country and a polity, to let this event slip into the passing distractions of our days.

What if the jet had been full of people?

Investigators are still trying to determine how Russell was able to start the plane and take off down a runway at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. And how was he able to the plane? In some conversations, he apparently indicated that he practiced using video games. Did he also have access to flight simulators?

Russell was in the air for an hour, bantering with flight controllers — and performing stunt maneuvers! — before crashing the Q400 on Ketron Island in the Puget Sound.

Richard Russell was a ground crewman. One of his jobs was to drive the tractor that positioned the jet for takeoff. How and where did he acquire the skills to do what he did?

In any case, it seems obvious that people who work in airports and have access to aircraft need to be subjected to rigorous security screening, and there should be national standards for such screening.

Airports, airlines and flight services should have full monitoring powers, and authority, over every airplane in their jurisdiction. Air marshals should do actual policing in airports. By the time the Q400 turned and positioned itself at the taxiway, it was, effectively, too late to do much.

This is a strange, and to some degree, entertaining story. But it is also a chilling one that federal authorities should take seriously.

Terrorists have already shown us what can be done when a passenger jet can be weaponized. We should attend to the Richard Russell story because we may be sure that many bad actors around the world have already done so.