Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Viking on August 11, 2018, 05:28:16 AM
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http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2018/08/11/plane-crashes-after-unauthorized-take-off-from-seatac-airport-officials-say.html
Mechanic takes off in plane, jets are scrambled, banter with ATC follows, he wonders about getting a job as a pilot jokes around, he does a barrel roll, then crashes the plane into the ground. People on reddit who followed it said the guy seemed to realize mid-air that he was well and truly *expletive deleted*ed now, even if he was not before stealing the plane. Sad story.
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“You think if I can land this successfully, Alaska will give me a job as a pilot?” and the Air Traffic Control tower said, “I think they will give you a job doing anything if you pull this off.” He replied, “yeahhh right.”
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Every pilot’s dream. Well, except for the dying part.
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"Think you can get someone on who knows how to fly this thing?"
"I wanna try some maneuvers before I put her down".
"I threw up a little bit. I uh, shoot, hold up, man I'm sorry about this I hope it doesn't ruin your day"
"I've played video games before so I, uh, I know what I'm doing a little bit"
"I've got a lot of people that care about me and it's going to disappoint them to hear that I did this. I would like to apologize to each and every one of them. Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, never really knew it until now".
"Man have you been to the Olympics? These guys are gorgeous, holy smokes"
"Hey uh, pilot guy, can this thing do a backflip you think?"
"I think I'm gonna land it, like uh, in a safe kinda manner. I think I'm gonna try a barrel roll and if that goes well I think I'm gonna go nose down and call it a night".
"I'm gonna do a barrel roll real quick"
"I wouldn't mind just shooting the *expletive deleted*it with you guys, but it's all business you know"
" I feel like I need to be, what do you think, maybe 5000 feet to pull this barrel roll off?"
"I feel like one of my engines is going out or something"
Guy needed help. =(
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Every pilot’s dream. Well, except for the dying part.
Could he have made a successful landing with coaching from a pilot in the tower?
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Video of the barrel roll
https://mobile.twitter.com/CameronThomsen/status/1028157648158568448/video/1
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Video of the barrel roll
https://mobile.twitter.com/CameronThomsen/status/1028157648158568448/video/1
Nice flyin’, Tex! He almost ran out of altitude.
I’m surprised he didn’t buzz the tower or Seattle or something.
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Could he have made a successful landing with coaching from a pilot in the tower?
Doubtful. While I work with quite a few pilots, most are only rated in smaller airframes like Cessna 172's and such. No idea how long it could take to get someone type rated or even familiar enough to fake it onto the freq.
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Doubtful. While I work with quite a few pilots, most are only rated in smaller airframes like Cessna 172's and such. No idea how long it could take to get someone type rated or even familiar enough to fake it onto the freq.
Mythbusters tried it in a simulator and they were both able to successfully land a simulated large passanger aircraft, I think a 747, while being coached by a instructor pilot in the ATC seat.
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Could he have made a successful landing with coaching from a pilot in the tower?
Successful as in not dying or successful as in being able to use the plane again?
This guy sounds like he had some sort of flying experience, maybe from video games, so I think he had pretty good odds of making a successflu landing on his own. With good coaching, he could probably land well-enough to not damage the plane.
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Mythbusters tried it in a simulator and they were both able to successfully land a simulated large passanger aircraft, I think a 747, while being coached by a instructor pilot in the ATC seat.
Read my post?
Very few of my colleagues have the flight experience in anything more than a single engine airframe such as a Cherokee or C172.
There is a huge difference in operating a C172 and operating a twin engine commuter aircraft.
If you can get someone on frequency who has familiarity with the operation of that aircraft, then I think the odds of a successful landing would go up dramatically.
I know of several instances where ATC or pilots have talked people through landing aircraft they're familiar with.
The biggest aircraft I know of being "talked down" by controllers was a super king air when the pilot died, but the guy who took control of the airplane was a qualified pilot, just not in twin engines. http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/13/florida.plane.emergency/
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My wife and I were watching this live for a bit on the Seattle local news. The most interesting thing to me was the F-15 response from Portland. The air-to-air defense for the upper left corner of the country is handled by the Oregon Air National Guard flying F-15s out of Portland. You can see their base on the other side of the civilian Portland International Airport. When they punch the afterburners, they can get up to the Seattle area in just minutes. As shown by this response, they must keep a couple of aircraft on strip alert. I knew that the AF/ANG did that all across the country for quite a while after 9/11 but then it tapered off. On occasion, the Oregon ANG also scrambles for issues in Canadian air space under NORAD, since I don't think Canadian Forces have any air-to-air defense assets in British Columbia.
McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma is all cargo aircraft these days, Fairchild in Spokane is air refueling and Whidbey Naval Air Station is maritime patrol and electronic warfare. At any one time, there may be a couple of Arleigh Burke destroyers at Naval Station Everett, but they offload ordnance at Indian Island Magazine before making port. So if the Russians decide to make an air strike on the Seattle area, it will be Portland who saves the day for us.
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There's quite a few alert jets scattered around the country.
On the nooz:
https://youtu.be/IgL5jOypOQ8?t=1m55s
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There's quite a few alert jets scattered around the country.
On the nooz:
https://youtu.be/IgL5jOypOQ8?t=1m55s
Jamis, who is it that makes the call to alert the air defense assets for something like this that is not picked up on NORAD radar? Is it the local ATC with knowledge of the situation? I wonder if the NORAD alert desk has a number you can call....
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https://www.businessinsider.com/f-15cs-breaks-sound-barrier-intercepting-stolen-airliner-from-seattle-2018-8?utm_source=feedburner&%3Butm_medium=referral&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29&utm_content=FeedBurner+user+view
https://twitter.com/Sabian404/status/1028137639747051521/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1028137639747051521&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheaviationist.com%2F2018%2F08%2F11%2Ff-15cs-intercept-stolen-dash-8-airliner-out-of-seattle-tacoma-airport-before-crash%2F
Eight minutes from initial alert to airborne, and then approximately five minutes to the interception site. You can see what appears to be a Sidewinder on the starboard pylon of each aircraft. The Twitter feed also references an AMRAAM, but I don't see that one. Fairchild dispatched a KC-135 tanker in support.
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Jamis, who is it that makes the call to alert the air defense assets for something like this that is not picked up on NORAD radar? Is it the local ATC with knowledge of the situation? I wonder if the NORAD alert desk has a number you can call....
Goes up the chain. We usually notice first and alert from there but there are a lot of eyes in the sky so to speak.
As to the decision chain, that’s not something I can speak publicly on without risking my clearance.
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You can see what appears to be a Sidewinder on the starboard pylon of each aircraft. The Twitter feed also references an AMRAAM, but I don't see that one.
White nose cone inboard of the sidewinder?
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White nose cone inboard of the sidewinder?
I think you are spot on as I look at the different angles of the two photos.
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I think you are spot on as I look at the different angles of the two photos.
Yep, That's a Sidewinder outboard and an AMRAAM inboard.
Drop tanks instead of conformals though. Seems like that'd slow them down a little. Does anyone know if the F-15C will take the conformal tanks, or is that limited to the E's?
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Yep, That's a Sidewinder outboard and an AMRAAM inboard.
Drop tanks instead of conformals though. Seems like that'd slow them down a little. Does anyone know if the F-15C will take the conformal tanks, or is that limited to the E's?
They have to be setup for over-the-water intercepts and have the gas on board to loiter. I saw the F16's out of Ellington do that regularly.
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The air-to-air defense for the upper left corner of the country is handled by the Oregon Air National Guard flying F-15s out of Portland. You can see their base on the other side of the civilian Portland International Airport. When they punch the afterburners, they can get up to the Seattle area in just minutes.
Where the video picks up the F-15 toward the end -- he's clearly on afterburner. There's a very visible flame coming out of the exhaust.
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Most of the news reports I'm seeing appear to be trying to avoid calling the crash an intentional suicide. Their slant is that he was performing dangerous maneuvers and crashed as a result. I wonder if they are doing to in the hope of potentially preserving life insurance benefits for his wife.
https://apnews.com/701faeff7c7a44ab89b1186f6ffa63be/Plane-stolen-by-'suicidal'-employee-crashes-near-Seattle
The Friday night crash happened because the 29-year-old man was “doing stunts in air or lack of flying skills,” the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department said.
Here's the part I like: It appears the ANG F-15s arrived on scene just in time to do a flyover and confirm the crash. Nonetheless:
Troyer [Pierce County Sheriff’s Department spokesman] said F-15 aircraft took off out of Portland, Oregon, and were in the air “within a few minutes” and the pilots kept “people on the ground safe.”
Just how did they keep anyone on the ground safe?
Southers [Erroll Southers, a former FBI agent and transportation security expert], the aviation security expert, said the man could have caused mass destruction. “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.,” he said.
Thank you, Captain Obvious. Why is it that too often the "authorities" simply refuse to acknowledge what any third grader can see plainly? The ANG didn't do anything. That's not to fault them, but the reality is that it took them between 15 and 20 minutes from the time they were scrambled to arrive on post. In that time, if the guy had wanted to do so he could easily have flown the plane into the biggest building in Seattle.
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Why is it that too often the "authorities" simply refuse to acknowledge what any third grader can see plainly?
Protecting their jobs. The police and other government employees have been indoctrinated to think that only they can protect the general population. You see that line of thought more in liberal types than in conservative types, but both groups think that way.
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Now that the Q400 has been successfully tested for aerobatics, I wonder if Bombardier will get the type certificate upgraded?
I couldn't help thinking about this video skit -- just substitute "wings" for "front," and "airplane" for "ship":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM
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There is a huge difference in operating a C172 and operating a twin engine commuter aircraft.
One of the ancient crop duster pilots here used to say the fix for that is to turn the motors off. Then they're nothing but glide slope and control response. He'd trained bomber crews in WWII, so I figure he had some relevant experience.
And, of course, they all go splat the same way when you screw up bad enough.
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And, of course, they all go splat the same way when you screw up bad enough.
Or just aim at the ground because you didn't intend to land it anyway ...
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One of the ancient crop duster pilots here used to say the fix for that is to turn the motors off. Then they're nothing but glide slope and control response. He'd trained bomber crews in WWII, so I figure he had some relevant experience.
And, of course, they all go splat the same way when you screw up bad enough.
You're not coming back up to the glideslope if you're under it, because you'll bleed off speed.
That might be the dumbest thing I've heard all week.
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You're not coming back up to the glideslope if you're under it, because you'll bleed off speed.
That might be the dumbest thing I've heard all week.
Only if you are trying to hit a designated spot on the ground, if all you want to do is hit the ground all you have to do is hopefully keep from stalling until the wheels touch mother earth (hopefully on a reasonably flat piece).
bob
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Reminded me a little of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Not saying I liked the book, just that it reminded me of the book. Never saw the movie.
Terry
REFs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Livingston_Seagull
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bach
http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=58002.msg1172135#msg1172135
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ummm... even if it had a low low chance of success, they still could have tried to get someone to talk the guy down.
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It's not like doing so would have hurt anything.
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ummm... even if it had a low low chance of success, they still could have tried to get someone to talk the guy down.
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It's not like doing so would have hurt anything.
But that would only have had any potential if the guy had any intention of/desire to land. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I have the distinct impression that he intended from the git-go to commit suicide, and just wanted to have an aerial joy ride before he ended everything. Regardless of phrasing that he "crashed as a result of aerial maneuvers," I don't think he "crashed." I think he flew it into the ground.
Intentionally.
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You're not coming back up to the glideslope if you're under it, because you'll bleed off speed.
The indicated glideslope for a given approach is an ideal, assuming - among other things - a pilot who's actually landed a plane before. Q400 needs ~4300' at max landing weight, (granted, I don't know how much of that requires reverse thrust, but he's also likely way under max weight) and SEA has a runway just shy of 12,000'. You can miss ideal by a lot and still have plenty of room to stop on that. Shoot for touchdown on or beyond the 2000 foot mark and he's still got more than double the maximum stopping distance, plus if he's low, there's still room to land "short."
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ummm... even if it had a low low chance of success, they still could have tried to get someone to talk the guy down.
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It's not like doing so would have hurt anything.
Sea-Tac isn't quite out in the boonies. IMO, the plane was likely to be a write off either way, so I'd have tried to talk him through ditching in the ocean near a CG ship. (Mostly to recover the body and so it could be said that we tried everything to save him short of having him point a Taliban Torpedo right into a populated area.)
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But that would only have had any potential if the guy had any intention of/desire to land. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I have the distinct impression that he intended from the git-go to commit suicide, and just wanted to have an aerial joy ride before he ended everything. Regardless of phrasing that he "crashed as a result of aerial maneuvers," I don't think he "crashed." I think he flew it into the ground.
Intentionally.
*shrug* He asked for help and it's not like it could have made the situation worse.
And I know I don't know anything about how towers and such work, but I find it hard to believe that in this day and age you couldn't get someone on the phone from anywhere in the world who knew how to fly that plane to talk to the guy.
Consider my stance to be the same as my regards to my S&W 642. I wouldn't depend on it to save my life, but it's a good "all is lost, I'm dead anyway, might as well shoot and see if I get lucky" gun.
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I'm glad all the aviation experts have weighed in now. ;/
Not that I've ever handled hundreds of inflight emergencies, including disoriented (hypoxic) pilots, or pilots encountering IFR weather when they're not qualified or trained in handling it. I'd say that a plane without a pilot ranks right up there as about as rare as getting struck by lightning while being bitten by a shark.
Just shitting out a pilot to talk him through anything isn't a guarantee.
We don't have some magic roster of pilots sitting next to the scope.
"Hey bob, it's jim. Yeah I got another nutjob who needs help landing a plane he stole."
Some shifts we have several qualified and current pilots around, other shifts not a single one.
The indicated glideslope for a given approach is an ideal, assuming - among other things - a pilot who's actually landed a plane before. Q400 needs ~4300' at max landing weight, (granted, I don't know how much of that requires reverse thrust, but he's also likely way under max weight) and SEA has a runway just shy of 12,000'. You can miss ideal by a lot and still have plenty of room to stop on that. Shoot for touchdown on or beyond the 2000 foot mark and he's still got more than double the maximum stopping distance, plus if he's low, there's still room to land "short."
You're assuming that the "pilot" wouldn't push the plane too low too far from the runway, to the point where you're not coming back up far enough to make the runway.
dumb
*expletive deleted*ing
idea.
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You're assuming that the "pilot" wouldn't push the plane too low too far from the runway, to the point where you're not coming back up far enough to make the runway.
I'm also assuming the "pilot" doesn't pull way up and either bounce off the hemispherical dome that covers our flat planet or swallow the sun and doom us all to a death by freezing.
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I'm also assuming the "pilot" doesn't pull way up and either bounce off the hemispherical dome that covers our flat planet or swallow the sun and doom us all to a death by freezing.
;/
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This guy was on a suicide mission, no doubt about it.
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Mike, give the midget one of your Snickers bars...
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Here's the part I like: It appears the ANG F-15s arrived on scene just in time to do a flyover and confirm the crash. Nonetheless:
Just how did they keep anyone on the ground safe?
They were on his six from when he turned around near Mt. Rainier, through the barrel roll, etc. and until he went down.
Also, I listened the entire audio of the incident (over 75 minutes total). I think they actually did get a Q-400 pilot on the line to try to talk to him (whether he was in the tower or not, I don't know), but at one point he asks "The Pilot Guy" about fuel and how to pressurize the cabin. (Which they tell him which switches to move.)
The thing that surprised me most was that they didn't get everyone else off the freq and onto an alternate freq.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1AlxFCJHNk
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Impact, fire...
I'm wondering if there'll be enough collectable matter to tell if he was flying under the influence.
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The thing that surprised me most was that they didn't get everyone else off the freq and onto an alternate freq.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1AlxFCJHNk
Sheesh! It's a good thing I didn't become a pilot.
The dialect of Spanish spoken in my wife's native country is essentially incomprehensible to me. I've heard other Spanish speakers say that the people from my wife's country seem to be having a contest to see who can speak Spanish the fastest. From this and other ATC audios I've listened to, it seems like ATC does the same thing for English. I tried listening to that video, and I had to give up. I caught maybe one or two words out of fifty.
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I asked about that about a year ago and the upshot from the aviation people here was that most of the time, except for quantities, the patterns trigger what they were expecting to hear anyhow.
To "concretize" that in my head, I compared that answer to a lot of "hamspeak," especially on the CW bands.
"CW," see? "Continuous Wave." Meaning Morse Code. <:REF :rofl:
"Bands," see? Selected portions of the electromagnetic (radio) spectrum for dedicated purposes. <:REF :rofl:
Terry
REF:
http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=58002.msg1172135#msg1172135
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"CW," see? "Continuous Wave." Meaning Morse Code. <:REF :rofl:
"Bands," see? Selected portions of the electromagnetic (radio) spectrum for dedicated purposes. <:REF :rofl:
I'm glad you clarified that because, to me, a CW band is a music group with a steel guitar and a fiddle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAFxxMvK1jI
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They were on his six from when he turned around near Mt. Rainier, through the barrel roll, etc. and until he went down.
Also, I listened the entire audio of the incident (over 75 minutes total). I think they actually did get a Q-400 pilot on the line to try to talk to him (whether he was in the tower or not, I don't know), but at one point he asks "The Pilot Guy" about fuel and how to pressurize the cabin. (Which they tell him which switches to move.)
The thing that surprised me most was that they didn't get everyone else off the freq and onto an alternate freq.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1AlxFCJHNk
Depending on terrain and the transceiver sites, you may not have a lot of options for frequencies.
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Sheesh! It's a good thing I didn't become a pilot.
The dialect of Spanish spoken in my wife's native country is essentially incomprehensible to me. I've heard other Spanish speakers say that the people from my wife's country seem to be having a contest to see who can speak Spanish the fastest. From this and other ATC audios I've listened to, it seems like ATC does the same thing for English. I tried listening to that video, and I had to give up. I caught maybe one or two words out of fifty.
I recall when I became a police cadet at age 19. I got my first taste of listening to police radios. It was incomprehensible. Over a little bit of time, when you get immersed in two way radio chatter it suddenly becomes clear as a bell. I guess that's called adaptation.
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https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/sea-tac-air-traffic-controller-faced-one-in-a-million-scenario-with-stolen-plane/
Jamis may have some interesting comments on this article.
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I'm glad you clarified that because, to me, a CW band is a music group with a steel guitar and a fiddle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAFxxMvK1jI
https://youtu.be/vS-zEH8YmiM
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Yeah, whatever.
To me, REM still means "Rapid Eye Movement." But then again, I'm Demented.
Terry
REFs (REM, William Dement):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_eye_movement_sleep
http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=58002.msg1172135#msg1172135
(https://2ahawaii.com/Smileys/extended/stopjack.gif)
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To me, REM still means "Rapid Eye Movement." But then again, I'm Demented.
Terry
REFs (REM, William Dement):
Yeah -- and REF is the guys in the striped uniforms on a football field, or the guy in the white shirt and bowtie in a boxing ring ...
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Yuh got me, pard...
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Absolutely a separate language. Haven't listened to the transcripts.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/sea-tac-air-traffic-controller-faced-one-in-a-million-scenario-with-stolen-plane/
Jamis may have some interesting comments on this article.
One in a million is a good description. Hijackings are super rare. Just this week I've handled a flight control failure and a vfr pilot encountering thunderstorms needing some guidance around them.
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(https://i.imgur.com/tQUzelE.jpg)