Stolen Airplane in Seatle over the weekend

[Road Guy]

anyone see this story?

https://binged.it/2P2FcH3

https://abcnews.go.com/US/stolen-plane-crashes-unauthorized-takeoff-seattle-airport-source/story?id=57141064

So far they cant find that the guy had any training other than flight simulator type games - kind of crazy you could just fire up a 78 seat plane and just take off from a decent sized airport?  Heard one pilot on the news said his barrel rolls were nothing short of "amazing"

glad no one was hurt other than the thief, but this story is a little crazy..

 

[txjennah PE]

It's insane!  What a sad story, and what a way to go.  The lack of security is pretty concerning.  I'm glad he didn't harm anyone else, at least.

 

[Supe]

From what I've heard, some of the simulator games are so detailed, they're actually used for pilot training.  Definitely enough to get the plane airborne.  

 

[akwooly]

He was from AK.  A friend of mine graduated high school with him.

 

[Road Guy]

one pilot (one the news) said there are a series of commands you type in to start the engine that are pretty complicated, that one mistake makes the engine unable to start - so assume someone showed him that? cant imagine they put that in a simulator? be curious to see how the story unfolds, if he was just crazy or wanted to go down in a blaze of glory..

 

[frazil]

I saw that story as I was waiting to get on a plane Saturday morning!  It is amazing he steal it and could take off like that. Do they just leave planes sitting around with keys in the ignition?

 

[csb]

I saw that story as I was waiting to get on a plane Saturday morning!  It is amazing he steal it and could take off like that. Do they just leave planes sitting around with keys in the ignition?

Yes. At least for some private planes. 

(The kind that get stolen.)

 

[RBHeadge PE]

I saw that story as I was waiting to get on a plane Saturday morning!  It is amazing he steal it and could take off like that. Do they just leave planes sitting around with keys in the ignition?

I'm actually not sure that commercial planes have traditional keys? And whatever it is that they do use, it would certainly be accessible enough to a mechanic charged with servicing the plane. 

 

[Dleg]

I don't know if this guy was a mechanic or not, but I remember talking to one guy who was an airplane mechanic and he told me that he routinely "moved" planes around on the ground, by firing them up and taxiing.  Maybe this guy had started those planes up several times like that. 

 

[jeb6294]

It’s not like he snuck into the airport to steal it. He worked there and had access to the service area where the plane was sitting.

it just says he was a “ground service worker”, but from some of the other articles I’ve read, that means he would direct planes and push them back from the gate. One of them said he actually used one of the tractors to turn the plane around.

I don’t know how accurate flight simulator games are nowadays, but investigators were impressed that he could even get the thing going. Being a twin engine prop plane, I guess you have to coordinate the engines?  On the other hand, when they were talking to him on the radio and there were simple things he didn’t know how to do.

 

[Flyer_PE]

The larger the aircraft, the less likely it is to require any kind of key to start.  The engine start sequence is not that complicated and the checklists are not hard to obtain.  I don't know about that specific model but I've seen add-on models for Microsoft Flight Simulator (2000) that were detailed enough to require the actual start-up procedure to fire the engine.  I'm not all that surprised that he could get the props turning.

Once the plane is pointed down the runway, getting it airborne is a simple matter of shoving the throttles forward and waiting for enough airspeed to rotate off the runway.  Getting an airplane off the ground isn't the challenge.  Putting it back on the ground in a condition that it can be flown again is the trick.

 

[Road Guy]

You would hope they wouldn’t give out the “exact” commands on a flight simulator?  Seems like a really dumb thing to do IMO..

But maybe if he did move planes around and such then having the “book” may not have been that far off, I think he was a baggage guy but I know the mechanics for the planes have a lot of say / authority over the aircraft though..

In a way this story is sad and kind of cool at the same time to be honest – just glad he dint crash into another plane trying to land or take off..

Military vehicles don’t have keys, you can normally just hop in and turn them on,  for storage they would have a cable that would lock to a U-bolt inside the vehicle to make it “really hard” to drive, but you could still turn them on, same for HMVV’s and M-1’s – makes similar sense for commercial aircraft to not have a set of “keys”

But I am sure now our overprotective security mindset will require all commercial vehicles get a “boot” that has to be locked and unlocked by a federal employee every time it checks in at the gate..

 

[RBHeadge PE]

Insider threats are some of the most challenging security problems to solve.

 

[Flyer_PE]

^Yep.  Security screenings just reduce the chances of bad behavior.  So long as humans are involved, the risk will never be reduced to 0.

 

[mudpuppy]

This reminds me of a few years back when a commercial airline pilot tried to steal a plane, but he ended up crashing it in the airport's parking lot before he could even get to the runway.  He ended up shooting himself to death in the plane instead of committing suicide by plane.  One article here:  http://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=54503384&itype=cmsid

Makes the latest incident all the more impressive that someone who had never flown a plane was able to get it off the ramp by himself when a commercial pilot wasn't able to do so.

 

[Flyer_PE]

Makes the latest incident all the more impressive that someone who had never flown a plane was able to get it off the ramp by himself when a commercial pilot wasn't able to do so. 

I think the big difference is the commercial pilot tried to get the plane from the ramp to the runway under its own power.  That could be a real trick with no ramp or runway lights. 

 

[csb]

This reminds me of a few years back when a commercial airline pilot tried to steal a plane, but he ended up crashing it in the airport's parking lot before he could even get to the runway.  He ended up shooting himself to death in the plane instead of committing suicide by plane.  One article here:  http://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=54503384&itype=cmsid

Makes the latest incident all the more impressive that someone who had never flown a plane was able to get it off the ramp by himself when a commercial pilot wasn't able to do so.

1. Never take a bathroom selfie, because that may be the photo they use of you when you're murdered. 

2. SkyWest pilots, at the time of this incident, were pretty low on the totem pole. This was the place you earned enough hours between flight school and a job with the big guys. Two of our pilots were former SkyWest and they talk about having to check the oil and perform a lot of things that pilots for United/Southwest/etc. don't do. New FAA rules require even these regional guys to have more hours. It's possible he was just a really bad pilot, rather than being completely indicative of the difficulty in taking a plane. 

 

[MA_PE]

The larger the aircraft, the less likely it is to require any kind of key to start.  The engine start sequence is not that complicated and the checklists are not hard to obtain.  I don't know about that specific model but I've seen add-on models for Microsoft Flight Simulator (2000) that were detailed enough to require the actual start-up procedure to fire the engine.  I'm not all that surprised that he could get the props turning.

Once the plane is pointed down the runway, getting it airborne is a simple matter of shoving the throttles forward and waiting for enough airspeed to rotate off the runway.  Getting an airplane off the ground isn't the challenge.  Putting it back on the ground in a condition that it can be flown again is the trick.

what about take-off and landing on a treadmill?

 

[txjennah PE]

1. Never take a bathroom selfie, because that may be the photo they use of you when you're murdered. 

LOL

 

[Audi Driver P.E.]