Grand Theft - Airplane

[Machine_Elf]

Elsewhere on the interwebs, they are making “Sky King” memes in response to this event.

[Declan]

@SmartAleq

A Redditor from the r/Portland subreddit was out at the airport and took an impressive pic of one of the F-15s scrambling to address the situation. There were multiple reports of sonic booms as the planes went hypersonic and it took them about ten minutes to cover the distance from PDX to Seattle. Pretty impressive. And yes, it’s fully armed with missiles and the like.

And that means that the airforce has armed fighters on strip alert

[Inigo_Montoya]

@Declan

And that means that the airforce has armed fighters on strip alert

Well you’d feel like a fool if you failed to stop a 767 from crashing into the Space Needle because you took too long loading the sidewinders.

[Slow_Moving_Vehicle]

@Maserschmidt

I listened to this last night as it was evolving, and once we were past the part where we might have been worried that he intended to crash it in a crowded place, he struck me as a slightly disturbed, moderately scared young man who hadn’t actually expected to be up in the air like that. Once he was up, he sounded kind of like he felt trapped.

That was exactly my take, listening to the VASAvation recordings on YouTube - he sounded like a feckless idiot who stole the plane for lulz, realized he was in way over his head, and tried to go in a way that wouldn’t hurt anyone else. One time he said he was looking for a “moment of serenity”, but that it didn’t come. He didn’t sound mentally ill, just phenomenally stupid. And possibly high.

Maybe not appropriate, but listening to the recordings, I thought “Huh. How did Andy from Parks and Rec get a job at SeaTac?”

[Johnny_L.A]

Fly it like you stole it.

[JackieLikesVariety]

@Johnny_L.A

Fly it like you stole it.

link doesn’t work for me

[Johnny_L.A]

@JackieLikesVariety

link doesn’t work for me

Here’s the google search. First image for me.

Or try this link.

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

@Helena330

He said he didn’t plan on landing, which does suggest he was suicidal. He seems like a good guy. He may have done us a favor exposing how easy it is to steal a plane with that job. Imagine if he’d wanted to hurt people.

With that in mind, there are numerous flightsim apps which are either free to download or cost next to nothing. Assuming that these flightsims are more or less accurate as to the handling of the various planes they offer for downloading, then it takes about a minute to learn how to take off. Landing is much, much harder.

• S.o.P. Scores of take-offs successfully completed in Infinite Flight.
  Zero landings successfully completed in Infinite Flight.

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

ETA: Do the airlines run periodic test/maintenance flights on some or all of their fleet, and if so, do mechanics ride along?* If so that would have been another way that Richard Russell might have picked up some of the basics.