Plane theft highlights the dangers of ‘insider threat’
THE theft of an empty plane by an airline worker who performed dangerous loops before crashing into a remote island in Puget Sound in Washington state has illustrated the potential perils of airline or airport employees causing mayhem.
Footage shows a 76-seater Horizon Air Q400 aircraft, which was stolen from Sea-tac International Airport, carrying out loops and other dangerous manoeuvres over Puget Sound near Seattle.
The flight lasting about 75 minutes ended when the pilot, named as Richard Russell, crashed into a small island, after being chased by two F-15C military jets. He is presumed to have died in the crash.
Erroll Southers, a former FBI agent, said: “The greatest threat we have to aviation is the insider threat. Here we have an employee who was vetted to the level to have access to the aircraft and had a skill-set proficient enough to take off with that plane.”
Mr Southers said the man could have caused mass destruction.
He added: “If he had the skill-set to do loops with a plane like this, he certainly had the capacity to fly it into a building and kill people on the ground.” Officials said the man had worked with Horizon for three-and-ahalf years, and had clearance to be among aircraft.
To their knowledge, he was not a licensed pilot, and he took the empty turboprop plane from a maintenance area.
It is unclear how Mr Russell attained the skills to carry out loops in the aircraft. Ground service crew direct aircraft for take-off and gate approach and de-ice planes, as well as handle baggage.
Horizon Air chief Gary Beck said it was not clear how the man knew how to start the engine, which requires a series of switches and levers. Mr Russell could be heard on audio recordings talking to air traffic controllers, who tried to convince him to land the plane.
“There is a runway just off to your right side in about a mile,” the controller said, referring to an airfield at Joint Base Lewis-mcchord.
“Oh man, those guys will rough me up if I try and land there,” Mr Russell responded, adding: “This is probably jail time for life, huh?”
Later, Mr Russell said: “I’ve got a lot of people that care about me. It’s going to disappoint them to hear that I did this ... Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess.”