Suicidal plane crashes are rare
Airline employee says he’s ‘just a broken guy’
The apparent suicide of a Horizon Air employee on an unauthorized flight with no passengers aboard Friday marked an exceedingly rare crash for an airliner, according to government regulators and industry experts.
Only a handful of airline-pilot suicides were reported among airlines worldwide in recent decades. The Federal Aviation Administration guides 42,000 airline and private flights each day, or nearly 16 million in 2016.
But when they happen, as with the fiery crash near Seattle, they gain widespread attention. A prominent example was Germanwings Flight 9525, which crashed into the Alps in March 2015 with 150 people aboard. French investigators ruled the crash “was due to the deliberate and planned action of the co-pilot, who decided to commit suicide while alone in the cockpit.”
Other incidents have been ruled suicides but disputed, including Egypt Air Flight 990 near New York in October 1999 with 217 people aboard and Silk Air Flight 185 crash in Indonesia in December 1997 with 104 aboard.
With no passengers aboard, the Seattle incident was similar to a generalaviation accident, where a single pilot crashes a private plane alone. But even those accidents are declining.
An FAA report in February 2014 checked 2,758 aviation fatalities during a 10-year period and found eight cases of probable suicide. Five of those pilots had commercial licenses, and two of those had a history of suicide threats or joking about suicide. But all the incidents happened in a small propeller plane or helicopter.
Despite the rarity, government regulators and industry officials have studied whether to adjust medical exams because psychological problems are essentially self-reported.
crews are just like the rest of us. Sometimes they have mental illnesses, and those need to be identified and treated and done so in a way that doesn’t risk the flying public,” said Greg Raiff, CEO of Private Jet Services, which lines up charter flights for clients. “Nobody wants to let one slip by, and the current system doesn’t do enough to prevent that.”
The 29-year-old Horizon employee took the Bombardier Q400 turboprop from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport about 8 p.m. and performed dangerous maneuvers, authorities said. The employee was initially identified as a mechanic but might instead have been a ground-services agent, authorities said. Two F-15 fighter jets pursued the plane before it crashed into Ketron Island.
On Saturday, investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board worked to figure out how the incident unfolded.
Debra Eckrote, regional director for the NTSB’s western Pacific region, said investigators were trying to recover the cockpit recorder, which could have captured the man talking as he commandeered the plane and might hold clues for a motive.
She said the event was “very unusual”: “It’s not like we get this every day.”
Eckrote said the plane crashed in a heavily treed area. Both wings were ripped from it, and the rest of the air“Airline
“Airline crews are just like the rest of us. Sometimes they have mental illnesses.”
Greg Raiff, CEO of Private Jet Services
craft was left in pieces, she said.
William Waldock, a professor of safety science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, said he is interested to hear what experience the ramp worker had because flying the plane would have required some knowledge for undoing several locks and brakes and starting the engines.
“Somewhere along the line he had to figure out how to start it,” Waldock said. “Normally rampers wouldn’t have any reason to be in the cockpit.”
Ed Troyer, the public information officer for Pierce County, Washington, described the pilot as a “suicidal male” but not a terrorist.
“I’ve got a lot of people that care about me. It’s going to disappoint them to hear that I did this,” the pilot said in recorded comments to air-traffic controllers. “Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess.”
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association is assisting the investigation. President Paul Rinaldi commended the controller’s poise during the incident.
“The recordings of the incident display his exceptional professionalism and his calm and poised dedication to the task at hand that is a hallmark of our air traffic controller workforce nationwide,” Rinaldi said.
Brad Tilden, CEO of Alaska Airlines, which includes Horizon, said an employee took an unauthorized flight, and the company was cooperating with investigators.
“I want to share how incredibly sad all of us at Alaska are about this incident,” Tilden said.
The U.S. policy to always have two people in the cockpit is intended to protect against health problems. Before a passenger flight, airline crew members evaluate each other for their readiness to fly.
Under FAA rules, commercial passenger pilots under age 40 have physical exams every year and those older every six months to keep their certificates.
Contributing: Associated Press