Plane thief ‘had security clearance’
SEATTLE: A 29-year-old “suicidal” airport worker who commandeered an empty plane from Seattle’s main airport and took it on an hourlong flight chased by F-15 fighter jets before crashing into a small island did not commit any security violations, officials said on Saturday.
Horizon Air employee Richard Russell told an air traffic controller he was “just a broken man” minutes before dying late on Friday in the Bombardier Q400 twin-engine turboprop plane, appearing to apologise for his actions.
Authorities ruled out any link to terror but consternation grew over the safety gaps that allowed an airport worker to easily gain access to a commercial airliner and fly it over a major metropolitan area.
“Everybody’s stunned ... that something like this would happen,” said recently retired Horizon operational supervisor Rick Christenson.
“How could it? Everybody’s been through background checks.”
Russell “had access legitimately” to the plane, said Mike Ehl, director of aviation operations at the airport in Washington, adding that “no security violations were committed”.
Video taken by a bystander showed the 76-seat plane making a big, slow loop-theloop as US Air Force F-15 jets gave chase, then flying low over Puget Sound before crashing into sparsely populated Ketron Island, setting trees on fire.
“To our knowledge, he didn’t have a pilot’s licence,” said Gary Beck, CEO of Alaska Airlines affiliate Horizon.
“Commercial aircraft are complex machines. No idea how he achieved that experience.”
But Russell’s role at Horizon, where he had worked since 2015, involved towing aircraft as part of a two-person team, in addition to loading and unloading cargo and luggage and cleaning the aircraft, according to Beck.
“At this time, we believe he was the only one in the aircraft but we haven’t confirmed that,” said Jay Tabb, chief of the FBI’s Seattle division. – AFP