He was riding in the jump seat, presumably on the way home? Thankfully the crew was able to subdue him and he was taken into custody when they landed at Portland. There’s almost certainly a bigger story as to why this guy tried to commit mass murder.
The pilot sounds pretty cool and collected:
“As a heads up. We’ve got the guy that tried to shut the engines down out of the cockpit. It doesn’t sound like he’s got any issue in the back right now. I think he’s subdued," the pilot of the plane told air traffic control. “Other than that we want law enforcement as soon as we get on the ground and parked.”
« yeah someone tried to crash the plane and kill us all, but other than that…"
In a second notification, the FAA clarified that the security event is not connected to current world events.
I guess maybe he just doesn’t like Mondays.
Glad the suicidal pilot wasn’t on duty flying. There would be less crew to react and stop someone at the controls.
Scary stuff.
That must’ve been quick hog-tieing behind the cockpit there, like i learned in Cub Scouts or something.
According to the story on CNN, the NBC headline cited on the OP may be misleading. It was technically an Alaska Airlines (ASA) flight but was actually being operated by Horizon Air, a regional carrier owned by ASA. So this guy may have been a pilot with the regional carrier, or maybe some other airline altogether. It’s a real black eye for whatever airline employed him so it doesn’t seem fair to assume it’s ASA until we know for sure.
I don’t know where to begin with this one. When I was an airline pilot I rode in a lot of jumpseats. Mostly, I wanted to stay out of the way as much as possible. It always felt like I was invading the crews’ space, despite my welcoming other pilots into my jumpseat when I was flying. So I can’t imagine someone doing something that insane.
As mentioned by Wolfpup, the guy could have been a pilot for another carrier, going to or from work, or even just on personal travel.
The security system in place for jumpseating was beefed up after 9/11. I wonder what they’ll do now, despite this being a vanishingly rare occurrence. It’s already much harder to travel as a “non-rev” these days because flights are so full.
Much more detailed info as to exactly what happened here:
From the article:
Wow, this could have turned out much more tragically. 
Never mind.
It most certainly could have, but I still want to point out that disabling the engines doesn’t mean the plane instantly falls out of the sky. Airliners can glide pretty well, and I can think of two incidents where airliners have run out of fuel in cruise and were able to glide to a safe landing. The potential for tragedy was most definitely there, but it wouldn’t necessarily have ended that way.
I assume one of them was the Gimli Glider?
Yes. The other was Air Transat Flight 236.
Interesting that both incidents involved Canadian airlines. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.
Gimli Glider was caused by an error converting pounds of fuel to litres. It’s the metric system’s fault!
True but how many times has this been attempted with a crazed lunatic in the cockpit violently (I assume) trying to disable more critical systems? What a crazy story.
Granted—I can think of one: that of the Gimli Glider. And of course there was the Miracle on the Hudson, which didn’t involve running out of fuel but instead was caused by a bird strike.
Nevertheless, I was simply pointing out the fact that there could have easily have been a tragic result here, and the two examples I’ve cited are notable for how tragedy was near-miraculously averted.
In the case of the Gimli Glider incident, one of the pilots happened to be an experienced glider pilot, and in the Miracle on the Hudson, Captain Sullenberger was unquestionably a hero as he started from such a low altitude and speed while still managing to conduct “the most successful ditching in aviation history”.
But often the result is more like this tragedy. The pilots still got a lot of credit for the fact that not everyone died.
Good reference here:
ETA: I need to type faster or more succinctly. 
Never mind…
You sure he wasn’t reaching for the switch to turn on the coffee pot? 
Nah he knew what the switches do. :
I am surprised the pilots were able to react fast enough to stop him. There has to be a few seconds to process what is happening. I believe the fire extinguishers for a commercial jet engine is a little more involved than pushing a button but I didn’t think it took all that many actions to accomplish either…read it can be accomplished in a moment if you know how they are operated…which this guy presumably did (IANAP).
ETA: I also assume this pilot was coming from behind the two pilots flying so they would not see him coming (probably).
Fire handles are very distinctively shaped. And any jet pilot would instantly recognize them for what they are even if riding in that type’s cockpit for the first time. They all work about the same way too. Nobody who was sane / sensible would fiddle with them.
It appears the jet was an Embraer E175 belonging to Horizon Air while the suspect was an Alaska airlines pilot. Horizon is the primary (and maybe even sole) RJ/Express carrier for Alaska.
I have long thought that it would be easy for a working pilot or jumpseater to kill themselves and most of everybody else by shutting down the engines at an inopportune time. Either by the fire handles or the ordinary on/off levers/switches. Which are also instantly recognizable to a pro. That was a risk I really had no defense against if my co-worker turned out to be a suicidal wacko that day.
Him choosing to do this in cruise is puzzling as a matter of tactics. He could have pulled the same stunt much closer to the ground and they’d all be dead now with the rest of the world wondering why pending more investigation. By pulling the handles in cruise he maximized the chances the crew could recover. Now maybe his planned next move was to kill the pilots and that didn’t go so well. Or had a change of heart or broke the spell of demonic possession or …
As @Llama_Llogophile says, this will really increase the pressure to tighten up the regs about jumpseaters. That is a two-edged sword, as there have been a few mishaps and many aw-shits avoided by an extra brain & pair of hands in the cockpit. Oddly, one of my personal briefing points to jumpseaters was always how their main job was to slow down or stop an attacker coming through the door. But what if the call is coming from inside the house?
Not my circus, not my monkeys now.
All the articles I’ve found so far can’t be read with adblock in place, so I haven’t seen the details.
To shut down the engines with the fire handles is typically just pull the big gripping handle straight out maybe 1/2". Typically there’s a mechanical interlock to prevent the handle being pulled unless a fire is being sensed on that engine. But there’s also typically a mechanical override button right under the handle to override that interlock. Interlocked or not, it’s intended to be doable with one hand in less than a second from “grip” to “pulled”. Not much force is required. Once pulled the engine is will quit running almost instantly.
Deploying the fire extinguisher is simply a matter of twisting the already-pulled handle left or right maybe 45 degrees. Also nearly instant. The extinguishers spray into the areas outside the engine body, inside the cowling. You know, the place where fire isn’t supposed to be, not where it is supposed to be. So for a normally running engine triggering the extinguisher has no effect on the engine’s operability.
Because of where the handles are on the 175 (and many other types), the jumpseater could probably reach up and grab both without either pilot noticing; He and they are far enough aft that a pilot would need a reason to turn around to put either in their field of view. Once in that posture it’d be a fraction of a second to turn both handles & deploy both extinguishers.
Other airplanes place them just aft of the throttles and any reaching into that area would probably be noticed by the working pilots while still in progress. But surprise & startle would still be a factor; no guarantee they’d see & react in time to prevent at least the shutdown.
Once shut down, the restart is pretty straightforward, if rather busy. If you have altitude, aren’t engaged in a fist or knife fight, and nothing else goes wrong, there’s no reason to expect a disaster. But it’s also a situation fraught with very severe consequences if things don’t go well. Gliding a jet to a successful landing is called a miracle precisely because so much has to go right situationally for even somebody like Sully or Yeager to pull it off.
Heck, if the bad guy just yanked the fire shutoff handles then sat on his hands, the working pilots could have shoved the handles back in and maybe gotten an immediate re-light on one or both engines. With one running the rest of the exercise is much less adrenaline-inducing.
For damned sure charging this guy with 83 counts of attempted murder is 100% a correct reading of the gravity of his actions.