It seems to me to be a continuation of the pattern of labor 'Going Postal' in the labor hostile environment that has emerged since Reagan.
This should be a wake-up call to everyone in the country. We can't survive without being able to trust and respect each other as human beings. Part of that is recognizing that even the most humble occupations deserve a fair wage and chance at advancement in life.
If we can't respect the people who put in 8 hour days on our behalf and fulfill our obligations to them as responsible business owners/organizers, we are doomed to see repeats of this type of tragedy.
People seek purpose, and many are content to do even the more "mundane" jobs so long as the compensation is fair. Too many places seek to be successful on Wall Street's terms rather than in providing a service to their community.
I'm sure an MBA will surface and tell me I'm wrong, but I've not encountered a workplace that didn't marginalize their workers and generated a tragedy of the likes that has become a hallmark of the last 50 years.
God Speed, Russell. May your death have not been in vain.
[0]Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion in America, Mark Ames
Often these types of suicides aren't given publicity, though this one was too much of a spectacle to ignore.
There was a man who shot himself on the steps of a government(?) building, which is a town over from where I'm originally from, because he was laid off.
A friend showed me the note he left on Facebook before it got deleted. It was very clear that he had been struggling financially for years and the layoff was the final straw.
In a sense, the way he went out was his attempt to bring attention to the problems he faced and believes others were facing, too. While I'm not an advocate of martyrdom, it's kind of sad that the very act he thought would shine light on his suffering was disappeared from the record.
In particular drought and subsequent famine, leading to not only poverty (which already existed), but food thst was priced beyond what most could afford in the necessary quantities and qualities. It’s a scary preview of what global climate change has in store for us all as people in marginal situations are suddenly thrust below the metaphorical (and occasionally real) water line. Political and social instability, war, mass migration, all are in the cards and here today.
The suicide was the spark, the tinder was almost literally brought about by a lack of water.
India's freemdom was gained, in part, by self immmolation. Can't be spreading that dissidence because it would lead to 'copy cats'. We don't actually want to fix the issue but rather sweep it under the rug like public mental health.
Mental health organisations see reporting on the "cause" of a suicide as unhelpful, even when there is a note. Not that their guidelines are normally adhered to.
Sell large screen TVs all day or pack bags on a plane to Hawaii all day — then try to make 13.50$/hr during a bad divorce. Spend 20 hours detailing a bmw m7 and struggle pay for your kids school supplies.
I am more surprised this isn’t a everyday thing. This country has a bad mental health issue. But ok. Make sure the lock is on the plane.
If we take the conversation at face value this individual does not appear to be malicious.
What's unsettling is a cheerful disposition mixed with deep resigned sadness. In a weird way its like he had given up and was broken but yet wanted his last shot at some 'fun', and also a bit of a protest while he is at it.
It's feels both disjointed and coherent. He is another voice in a growing realization of the need to organize society around people and not markets.
Which part of an MBA syllabus deals with suicidally insane employees, again? I'm guessing the bit about liability insurance coverage, maybe? I'm 100% willing to bet it's not a section on how to help and retain employees with mental health issues by dealing with things in a sensitive and understanding fashion though, sadly...
OK, so what then? Lets try some MBA-approved brainstorming - nothing is wrong here, ideas are what is important!
- A carefully calculated series of beatings?
- The 'naughty step' for at least five minutes?
- Some sort of heavy-duty drug regimen involving intravenous lithium and/or ketamine?
- Maybe just pay someone to follow them around and prod them with a meter-stick whenever they seem to be getting a bit too excited? They could also hold up a warning sign, or maybe a color coded flag (as decided by either local church committee, or an act of parliament, depending on regional preferences) to warn people nearby (when not engaged employing the meter-sick, of course.)[0]
0. This last one is actually really good, as not only does it fix the sociopaths, it gets us closer to full employment, what with the flag people and all the committees, which will need planning meetings with secretaries and facilitators and note-takers and adminstrators, probably some sort of report will need to be generated after a while to see if the committees are working properly, or if we need more. And then there's the craftsmen who make the meter-sticks and flags as well. Probably the flag/meter-stick people will want a uniform, which adds a whole new layer of possibilities.
In fact, I can't see why everyone doesn't just get up NOW and grab a long stick and go out and prod some fucking sociopaths just to show them who's boss. I think that was the idea, anyway.
Reading the dialog I think it's fair to say that both a) the man was not quite well, and b) the only motivation he actually DID suggest was the stress of low wage. So there's that.
Occam's razor says he most likely meant what he said.
If a program errors into a non-recoverable state, and I see something in the stack trace, odds are it had something to do with the issue.
He showed intent to send a message. The fact he was about to end his life just amplifies it. Of all the things one could have focused on, that stuck out? Hardly dismissable.
He knew where his life was going either way. Either because he would have ended it regardless, or because he knew that doing anything drastic enough to hurt the "people" who he saw as the source of his hardship would forfeit his ability to live any semblance of a normal life afterward.
>It seems to me to be a continuation of the pattern of labor 'Going Postal' in the labor hostile environment that has emerged since Reagan.
What evidence do you have that this is a trend?
>I'm sure an MBA will surface and tell me I'm wrong, but I've not encountered a workplace that didn't marginalize their workers and generated a tragedy of the likes that has become a hallmark of the last 50 years.
Isn't that every single employer that hasn't had an employee do this?
What is your response to the European pilot that crashed a passenger plane full of passengers working for an airline in a country that eschews free market capitalism and has strong social safety nets?
The media is full of articles about how to avoid being stressed out, how to manage stress, how to avoid being stressed.
Hardly do they ever even discuss that maybe our current labor/employer power balance and paradigm is fundamentally unhealthy, and only exists to fuel the greed of rampant crony capitalism.
I predict we're going to see many more such incidents of labor "going postal" in the near and medium term. Doubly so if the economy contracts and goes into a recession.
Just look at the situation in NYC with ride-sharing and all the taxi driver suicides.
This is something that's made me think a lot about the health care debate.
Would it not be just that, if we're going to rewrite the economic rules in some areas, we give partial compensation towards those we just screwed over?
Presumably we're changing the rules because of progress (e.g. Uber and Lyft showing on-demand rideshare has a market), which is good for everyone.
But say the human lifespan is 85 years +/-. 25 years for education to post-secondary graduation (e.g. bachelor's degree in US). Probably another 2-5 years of accumulating working capital for your venture.
So there's a set number of "shots" a person gets in their life.
In this instance, what's wrong with saying "We're doing away with the medallion system. Existing medallions will be repurchased by the government at a price proportional to ownership time. Funding will be accomplished by a tax on rideshare companies, that decreases yearly, and ends 5 years from now"?
Otherwise, I see the following sequence of events: (1) people get screwed by technological upheaval -> (2) people become resentful against technological progress -> (3) people vote in politicians / laws that retard technological progress, to the detriment of all
I wouldn’t necessarily say you’re wrong, but (at least in the US) we have a long history of taxpayer-subsidized bailouts for the very wealthy who take gambles and lose (e.g., 80s S&L crisis, but there are countless others). It’s an interesting and unfortunate cultural aspect of America that we really, really hate the poor, and seek to hold them accountable for their actions to a degree that we simply don’t do for the well-off.
Because betterofchuck is not with us anymore, I have copied his comment, which I think is important for a myriad of reasons. Predominantly because _this is how america works_, we punish, we do not fix.
----
Poverty is the Lord's way of anointing the sinners for the righteous to cull.
Ephesians 1:11 “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.”
The parts of US culture I am familiar with blur the lines between godliness and wealth pretty far. It is a common belief that the poor are being justly punished for their sins, and that only good things happen to good people.
That is... A horrible reading of that passage. It completely cherry picked and pulled it out of context.
From the Today's English Version,
Paul's Letter to the Ephesians: Chapter 1, verses 1-11
From Paul, who by God's will is an apostle of Christ Jesus--
To God's people in Ephesus, who are faithfulin their life in union with Christ Jesus.
2-) May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.
3-) Let us give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! For in our union with Christ he has blessed us by giving us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly world.
4-) Even before the world was made, God had chosen us to be his through our union with Christ, so that we would be holy and without fault before him, because of his love.
5-) God had already decided that through Jesus Christ he would make us his children--this was his pleasure and purpose.
6-) Let us praise God for his glorious grace, for the free gift he gave us in his dear Son!
7-) For by the blood of Christ we are set free, that is, our sins are forgiven. How great is the grace of God,
8-) which he gave to us in such large measure! In all his wisdom and insight
9-) God did what he had purposed, and made known to us the secret plan he had already decided to complete by means of Christ.
10-) This plan,which God will complete when the time is right, is to bring all creation together, everything in heaven and on earth, with Christ as head.
11-) All things are done according to God's plan and decision; and God chose us to be his own people in Union with Christ because of his own purpose based on what he had decided from the very beginning.
Nothing in there screams "poverty is an affliction God amounts on the sinner."
You might get a hint of it around verse 14, but that verse is contingent on the Spirit granting complete freedom to the faithful.
The entire section is a call to praise God.
I don't know who this betterofchuck is, but he seems to have a penchant for cherrypicking verse to fit his argument. His interpretation is outright sickening, and bordering on the blasphemous.
Also, America DOES tend to see destitution as a self-inflicted condition, but the main way in which disgust is usually elicited is by the perception of those destitute who refuse to find a way to better themselves. A central American value is to FIGHT for one's own liberty, not to grovel at the feet of others to have it delivered. This disgust can be elicited just as easily by the wealthy as well.
Show me someone who makes an honest effort at lifting themselves up, and I'll show you someone living up to the American ideal.
It isn't pretty, but in my life, THAT is how America has worked.
Presumably they bought the medallions at current fair market value.
I'd draw a distinction between those who risk their own capital for themselves, and those who risk capital through others (aka investors). It's not an easy distinction to codify, but it seems important.
Society needs people taking risks for themselves. To benefit themselves. And instead of paying after they've hit rock bottom, maybe it would be smarter to do a bit to keep that from happening.
> People who overpaid for medallions gambled and lost.
Earning a livelihood is not gambling. The taxi drivers had entered the market for medallions under specific circumstances and IMHO should be compensated by government if government unilaterally breaks the deal.
There are plenty of non-medallion drivers being squeezed by the recent Uber/Lyft boom.
A poster above me highlights one example of a livery driver whose income fell precipitously after the ride-sharing floodgates opened.
Even Uber/Lyft drivers themselves are being squeezed (which I guess is the whole point). Look at the conditions that many bay area ride-sharing drivers face... driving hours from their homes outside the bay to make barely above minimum wage (if that) driving 60-80-100 hours a week in the city.
Meanwhile all the marketing from these companies paint a rosy picture of "being your own boss" and earning "side-hustle" money, when in reality most of these drivers are, like taxi drivers, poor immigrants killing themselves trying to make a living (and without all the benefits and protections of a "traditional" job).
Nothing I'm saying is extreme or a stretch. If you live in a major urban area you can literally see it and experience it for yourself. I've made this same point across different threads and keep on getting down-voted, but as Sinclair once said "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
It really isn't. I left the reference in my post for a reason.
The fact is our society has a tendency to be unable to have meaningful discourse until someone provides framework for it. Just as the issue of Slavery back in the 1800's was fraught with the same types of rebellious antics and slaveowner hysterics, we're seeing the same patterns reserve at a time where inequality in the country has begun to reach a new perceived maxima.
You're also seeing the same sort of outpouring of sympathy that many workplace shooters saw after they snapped, even from some people they shot.
I'm not bringing the topic up lightly. I DON'T make a habit of bringing up the obvious or trying to find a way to turn things political. I've seen slices of life recently from the 1%, to teachers, to call center workers, to someone working the floor at a Tractor Supply, to an AM in a grocery store, to farmers, to the retired elderly for who the system worked.
Every last one realizes that something is going amiss right now after a bit of time spent talking. Every last one feels helpless to change anything about it. In this type of environment it is frequently the mentally ill who are best able to perceive the flaws inherent in the System, and the most likely to ACT because of them.
The 'crazies' in short, aren't the problem. The fact we as a society have normalized something so 'off' that even the 'crazies' are starting to get pushed over the edge by it is what we should be paying attention to.
As I said, I was quite confident my post would prove controversial, but I felt it needed to be said, as it has been left unsaid for too long.
Pointless attempt to tie a political view to a tragedy, please don't do this. There have been massacres, bombings, dramatic suicides, etc long before the Reagan administration and none of them have claimed "If I would have only had 20% more compensation I wouldn't have violently murdered these 20 people."
No one says that outright but poverty and violent extremism are pretty closely linked. Its not the only factor ofc, and youll always have outliers, but comfortable people with things worth losing are less likely to do something to endanger that.
It's less politics, and more to do with empathy for the common man. Mental illness is at an all-time high, wages are low, poverty is incredibly visible, and based off of postings on Reddit, Facebook, etc. there's a general attitude of being despondent due to the current economic and political climate. Something has to change, and it can only really start at the top - with government taking care of its citizens rather than constantly destroying the few social safety nets left.
based off of postings on Reddit, Facebook, etc. there's a general attitude of being despondent due to the current economic and political climate. Something has to change
Maybe spend less time on Reddit, Facebook, etc... Things probably aren't as bad as they look through the lens of social media.
Employment is low, home ownership is increasing, healthcare is too expensive but still more accessible than it ever has been. Things can be better, but I'd say, gently, that you lack perspective. You are mirroring a story that you see online on TV and social media that is created to make you think things are terrible so you'll watch more tv and spend more time on social media. Stagnant wages aren't terrible, 25% unemployment was terrible. Stagflation was terrible. You think housing is tough now, try a home loan at 16% interest rate like in 1981/2. You think things are politically divisive now? Look at the violence and political assassinations in the 1960's. Look at the crime rate which has been declining for a two decades.
Unemployment is low, but the jobs at the lower end are still jobs that don’t pay a living wage. Credit card, auto loan, and student debt defaults are rapidly rising. Home prices have accelerated away from incomes that can support them.
While I appreciate your view on my perspective, it comes from careful analysis of macroeconomic data, as well as discussing the issues with citizens who would eventually be my constituents when I run in the next election cycle.
I'd suggest looking at more data before we cast politics aside - I would like to compare the amount of mental health issues that manifest themselves like this one ranging up to mass violence with other countries. My hypothesis is countries with a larger middle class and robust social care (such as access to affordable health care) have less of these events.
Why pointless? It seemed quite pointful to me. In fact, I would go so far as to say that salawat's point, far from being pointless, is actually correct, and we ignore it at our peril.
The article title seems like an overreaction to a really sad situation. We have to trust at least someone, and although he clearly had some issues (maybe recent), he wasn't out to hurt anyone or aligned with any groups that wanted to inflict harm.
Fighter jets were there immediately, people tried to talk him down, and he was lost. Nothing better could have been done all around. Yes, commercial planes could be keycoded or controlled in some other way, but I think most engineers in a controlled setting will agree this creates exponentially more day-to-day headaches than catastrophic situations it prevents.
The articles I've read said indicate that a "Taxi Capable" employee would be empowered to start up the aircraft, so it's not even clear whether security precautions would be relevant here.
Seems that it should be a two-level interlock, as is found on some high-end sportscars. The regular key allows for regular driving, but the Valet Key limits it to just over walking speed -- obviously sufficient to park & retrieve, but no good for joyriding.
I'm quite surprised that this was overlooked in post-9/11 security reviews.
I'm surprised that taxi capable employees are left by themselves to do this kind of work. This could've been preventable had there been a second person in the cockpit as well.
All the fucking time. While there is an attempt to avoid and standard deployment procedures hopefully. Sometimes in an emergency you just get shit done and fixed for a client. I heard a mantra regarding this from a pretty big consultant at a major company: be bold be brave, deploy
I guarantee your financial information has passed through that product.
A lot depends on the size, maturity, and customers of the group shipping code. One-person side/hobby projects wouldn't have a 2nd person to review the code. A previous employer initially had a "Deploy to Production" script that ran every 60 seconds, copying the Development folder to the Production folder - to make easier their testing in Prod.
But large publicly-held companies with more customers will often have auditors that require better controls over dev/test/UAT/Prod, and between developers and operators. Separation of Duties is essential to protecting Business Operations from disruptions caused by a single individual.
There should be some sort of lockout that requires 2 humans to put an airplane in the air - at least for major airlines, and could be mandated by law. This could range from a 2-key fuel shutoff for the engines, to different keys on the outer plane door and the inner cockpit door, to mandatory wheel boots on idle airplanes. And part of this would be a very good key management system, possibly with many physical keys managed by an airport or airline "key desk" - or maybe through electronic key-cards, RFID chips or key-fobs, or a smartphone app.
And even at Large publicly held companies the guy trying to implement a fix that matters is going to over ride those controls and get it out, the auditor might complain later but who cares. I know some devs that will do it at midnight while smoking weed at Fortune 50 companies. Sometimes you ignore the normal process and get it done and basically work around any locks/restrictions
Airline engineering employees need to power on planes, fire up various systems to test, and even move them around. It's absolutely routine. All the reports I've seen seem to suggest that this was one of those employees. So it seems reasonable to assume that he would have had the PIN or "key" or whatever in this case anyway.
valet mode for aircraft. of course we can never eliminate the risk but perhaps a two key mode similar to launch controls for missiles to do anything with a plane other than low power movement?
The all zero thing goes back a while when someone in the military was told to put launch codes in and defiantly made them 0. Because God forbid there should be any protection on the most deadly device ever created by man.
Whatever system that you put in place would have to never (or very close to never) have a false negative during normal aircraft operation.
One other commenter here mentions a simple ignition key would have prevented this incident, but there's been at least one major ignition system flaw in cars that caused multiple deaths ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch... ), and the consequences of a failure causing loss of control to a passenger aircraft far outweighs that in a car.
Given the very low rate of unauthorised takeoffs of passenger aircraft, and that this case was an insider who may have been able to gain access to keys/codes anyway, is introducing introducing a new system to aircraft justified?
Two things really caught me about this story besides the security implication.
First, the skill Russell deployed from (only?) having used a PC flight simulator surprised me. If Russell in fact never had any flight experience outside a simulator, well, I'm just stunned at what he was capable of doing. (Linked in article, here for convenience.) [0]
Second, and more importantly, Russell's demise is tragic, pure and simple. He seems relatively smart, had loved ones who cared about him, and was well-liked and well-regarded by his peers and co-workers.
Yet, something was very broken for Russell.
I won't speculate about what may have caused Russell's despair, but I can't help but feel his demise could have been avoided. I wish this story had a different ending.
I have put many hours in flight simulators (the ones you can install on your own PC). One day I decided to take a real flying lesson. It was almost the same as in the simulator. Obviously the controls are a bit different because of different feedback, but you get used to it quickly. I think what helps a lot is that there are so many very detailed plane packages out there you can buy for the simulators. Too bad the community is kind of toxic, so I stopped playing these games.
Obviously it's not enough to get a pilot license because there are some things that you just can't do in a simulator.
There's one thing that really bugs me: why is everyone so surprised that an airport worker who was familiar with the planes managed to take off?
The reason this bugs me is that the 9/11 investigation concluded that multiple people with 0 flight experience can be taught to accurately steer a large commercial jet after just a short time training on small aircraft. In this frame of reference managing to take of in a small turboprop in good weather conditions shouldn't surprise anybody.
P.S. OK, I missed the part where "the plane was doing deep dives, broad loops and at least one upside-down roll"... But the "bug" is still there. If it's generally accepted that you can learn your way in a 747 cockpit on relatively short notice, doing dives and loops with a small plane shouldn't be that unbelievable. And I say this as a person who can comfortably take off and land a Piper Cherokee but was pretty dumbfounded when sitting in the captain's seat of a 747 for the first time.
>First, the skill Russell deployed from (only?) having used a PC flight simulator surprised me. If Russell in fact never had any flight experience outside a simulator, well, I'm just stunned at what he was capable of doing. (Linked in article, here for convenience.) [0]
Taking off and simply flying around are the easy parts. Playing a couple hundred hours of simulators would get you a nice feel for hand flying, especially if you had a PC yoke and rudder pedals. You could download a good plane model and know where absolutely everything is in the cockpit as well.
There are flight simulator packages available for many different planes, including the Q400. They feature fully functional cockpits. Here's a tutorial of the Q400's sim cockpit:
Russell grew up in Alaska. More people there than might be commonly imagined have experience flying (small) planes from an early age without licenses or formal lessons. I don't know that this was the case with him, but I would not be at all surprised.
Being a mechanic, he was probably used to the pre-flight checklist (pretty much how to get the plane ready to fly). Then there's the takeoff checklist. It's checklists all the way down.
It's really not that hard. It's just consistency, talking on the radios, and years of experience to know how to handle anything unexpected that makes the pilot. Even then... there's probably a checklist for it.
This is something we handle really, really badly. One bad thing happens one time (like a failed shoe bomb), and so everybody forever-more has to be permanently inconvenienced every day.
Whatever the response to this incident is, I hope (and doubt) that it will also balance the CHANCE of this happening against the huge cost and inconvenience of making it "impossible" to ever happen again.
We all know that 100% and "impossible" is not going to work, and we all know that lame "for show" security measures are a huge waste of money that could be better spent elsewhere.
The question that needs to be asked and will not is: what would be the most best positive impact for that same amount of money?
It won't be asked because it's a hard question and people are scared of hard questions.
I've always wondered about the true value of "for show" security measures. Requiring millions of passengers to spend 5 minutes more going through security to undergo procedures that wouldn't stop a determined terrorist definitely seems like a huge waste.
However, if the government didn't do "something", it's pretty likely that trust in the US air transportation system would shrink. Wouldn't crush it, but maybe 3 of 100 passengers would forgo air travel because they didn't feel comfortable or that their government isn't on top of it. And maybe that 3% decrease corresponds in $XXX Million in lost revenue for airlines.
So I'd believe that "for show" security measures don't actually increase security, but I'd also bet that they increase airline ridership. The moral of the story is that it's an economic response, not a security one.
> The inconvenience of extra passenger screening and added costs at airports after 9/11 cause many short-haul passengers to drive to their destination instead, and, since airline travel is far safer than car travel, this has led to an increase of 500 U.S. traffic fatalities per year. Using DHS-mandated value of statistical life at $6.5 million, this equates to a loss of $3.2 billion per year, or $32 billion over the period 2002 to 2011 (Blalock et al. 2007).
Sure, but it's also dishonest. It only happens and works because there is no honest conversation between the money spender (the government) and the voters.
Wasting money and theater is a tax on the 97% who still would have flown.
> This is something we handle really, really badly.
We handle it bad because the news scaremongers with hyperbolic exaggerations. The people get overly anxious and of course politicians rush to the worst possible "solutions".
I remember a while back there was hysteria over pilots not being screened. Then people found out that a pilot doesn't need weapons to take down a plane and screening pilots doesn't make sense. Common sense.
If everyone would just calm down and think things through, we'd come to more sensible solutions. And much of the time, the sensible solution is to do nothing. Bad things happen. Just the way life is. So we should weigh the options calmly and sensibly, not hysterically.
It's not like the engine start procedure on one of those things is a turnkey solution. The amount of domain knowledge needed serves as a form of soft security.
The checklist is what you'd be reading, usually a laminated one-page card kept in a convenient spot. The documentation that the checklist refers to is the full "user manual" for the plane, with things like the quick reference handbook (QRH) that includes the step-by-step procedures covering what to do for every single warning light, emergency condition, etc. Also "documentation" here could also cover the mandatory things you have to have in the plane like the airworthiness certificate, registration, FCC radio license, insurance certificate, etc.
So I guess the short answer to your question is yes, in this context the documentation and checklist are not the same thing.
Right but my point is if you're premeditating the theft to the point where you've studied the manuals/practiced in flight simulators then a key isn't going to be the thing stopping you. I mean will that person realistically go "oh man, I've spent 100 hours learning how to pilot this thing, snuck into the plane, properly fueled the plane and did weight balancing but shit I don't have the keys, guess I'll just go home!". Nah, that guy is hot wiring that plane or stealing the keys on his way into the plane.
> Surprising it has taken decades for someone to try this.
It last happened 7 years ago. From the article:
> Colton Harris-Moore, nicknamed the Barefoot Bandit, was sentenced in 2011 for stealing small planes, which he had learned to fly himself as a teenager after reading flight manuals.
Your average airport has thousands of employees. Airports are thoroughly infiltrated by criminal gangs smuggling drugs. They don't do full background checks on everyone who works there let alone psychological tests.
> Many people commit suicide without such a final moment of exhilaration.
...and without costing tax payers (F-15 fighter jets scrambling) and private companies (the airlines that owned the crashed plane) millions of dollars, causing stress and anxiety to people boarding other flights at Seattle airport and the subsequent delays to everyone else.
You’ve clearly never been suicidal. When you are, you don’t care about anything; not even yourself. Also, nothing scares you. So when you finally kill yourself, pain to yourself and others are the least of your worries.
> Mr. Russell and his wife were active church members, Mr. Orr said, “so he doesn’t really fit the bill of someone who would steal an airplane.”
Can we please stop insinuating that people who attend church are perfect and incapable of doing wrong and, by omission, insinuating that those of us who do not are evil?
Edit: If the downvoters would like to explain how I’m wrong, that would be lovely.
"Active church member" tends to imply more than just attending. The statement could reflect religious bias or just mean Russell was seen as a dependable member of his community.
So glad they told us this important fact. I wonder if his final direct deposit (to his estate) will include that days' pay or if it will count as a vacation day?
It's emphasising the fact that suicide is sometimes a sudden act and is, for some people, more about "rapid onset despair" than long lasting mental illness.
That sentence did stick out to me too. As abrupt and lacking further information as it was it did serve to notify us as to how he was able to be on the tarmac and gain access to the airplane. I do feel that the author could have expanded that thought a bit more.
But you could just as well read it another way: the pressure built up and eventually he snapped, or he was just waiting for an opportunity and finally one presented itself, or he was just spontaneously overcome (not that we'll likely ever know).
That's what I meant by the inanity: it's just a random trivial fact jammed in there without context nor explanation of why it should be relevant. Writing a story is selecting the relevant facts and dropping the rest: if there was a bank robbery I wouldn't expect to see "the robber wore a blue baseball hat" unless it were explained why it was worth mentioning.
It could of course be poor editing, but it reminds me more of one of those high school essays where you just jam a few extra things in there to get the word count up. Admittedly, this isn't the most important article in the world and could easily have been assigned to a junior reporter -- and reporters write a lot so I don't mean to harsh on this one.
I don't know that it's fair to describe it as a random trivial fact; it at least implies that he worked that shift and nobody noticed anything amiss. The events of his final day are just a tiny part of the story, but they're a part of the story nonetheless. Journalists are going to look for narratives, and the narrative of "he worked his day normally and at the end of the shift stole a plane" is different than "he wasn't scheduled to even be there that day and came in to steal a plane," or "he hadn't shown up for work the last four days, until he came in to steal a plane."
(I'm not sure the bank robber in a blue baseball hat is a good example of an unnecessary detail, by the way. Almost every story about a robbery with witnesses is likely to include basic details about what the witnesses saw. I'm not sure I've read a single story about such a robbery that wouldn't include a detail like that!)
That's an interesting point, raising a couple of interesting issues!
No lives were lost (apart from the thief's) but the company is out a plane and the taxpayers are out some fuel. I know embezzlers are often required to make restitution, but I've always assumed that this was for rehabilitative purposes. Presumably companies have insurance (maybe embezzlement restitution goes to the insurance company?) and the taxpayer, well, that's what we're paying for.
A second interesting question is the innocent family members who presumably have depended on the income from the thief. Clearly the last (partial?) paycheck won't be material either way, but who would be "punished" and whom "provided restitution" in this case?
It's really nice to see American Air Supremacy in response to a potential terrorist air threat. Neutralizing the stolen plane with a Sidewinder missile would have provided a slightly better show of force to would-be terrorists, but this was pretty good IMO. Our Air Force is more powerful than it's ever been, while our mental health system was better off back in the 1940s.
I'm glad they deployed the fighter jets in case they were needed, but I'm equally glad they tried to avoid firing and managed to do so. While I applaud them for handling the possibility of terrorism, I applaud them even more for evaluating the actual situation and reacting proportionately.
Had the guy been a terrorist, he could have flown that plane into Seattle or into SeatTac airport itself. They wouldn't get here in time because they were flying in from Portland. We all got lucky this time.
F-15 max speed is 1646mph (around 0.45 mi/s). From take off in Portland to arriving at SeaTac would be less than 5 minutes at top speed. I assume it takes longer than that to get pilots in planes and takeoff.
Seattle also has JBLM (joint base Lewis/McChord, army and air Force), along with Bremerton naval base. I'm guessing they picked pdx because of pilot availability, travel time is near nothing compared to getting a plane in the air at those distances.
This could have been much worse. I feel bad for the guy, he needed help, but I'm glad it ended how it did. Crashing into another plane, or anywhere populated, would have been catastrophic.
> Mr. Russell stole a plane from the airport and flew it for about an hour before it crashed. (emphasis mine)
Wonder why Air National Guard's scrambled F-15s [0] didn't engage and bring the plane down before the individual commandeering the prop -- Mr. Russell -- brought the aircraft down with himself in the Ketron Island.
IIRC, the plane flew over several densely populated areas before going down, and I can imagine a thousand horrifically different ways this could have turned out.
If you've seen the videos of the F-15s, you know that the stolen plane was definitely within engagement range [0]. It's pretty clear to me that the decision not to shoot down the plane was very intentional.
I agree that a rogue plane over a densely populated area is a nightmare scenario, but also consider that debris from a shot down plane and/or an air-to-air missile over a populated area could be quite bad or worse. Couple this with the fact that the hijacker was communicating with ATC and showed no hostile intent, and it makes sense that the plane was not shot down.
If I was in charge of this operation, I would have given the instruction not to shoot down the plane unless it started to make moves towards a populated area.
> I can imagine a thousand horrifically different ways this could have turned out
Like what? It's a small prop plane with a tiny amount of fuel and mass. Stealing a truck is considerably easier and can be used to do considerably more damage.
This 'hurr so scary we need to act' line of reasoning is why people have traded all their freedoms away in exchange for illusionary protection. The attack surface from a malicious actor is near infinite. Worry about the fact that your country's healthcare system kills hundreds of thousands of people every year by denying treatment, not about what a guy in a light aircraft could have done.
If the 18 wheeler has a path to a target that lets it hit the target at top speed, it would only be delivering about 20% of the kinetic energy the plane would assuming an empty plane operating at maximum safe low altitude speed.
That's with a high performance truck. A more average truck, or a truck with its speed limited by a governor (common in many commercial fleets) would have about 10% of the kinetic energy of the plane.
And remember, this is assuming the truck can get to its target at top speed. In reality a lot of targets are not reachable by a path that would allow a truck at speed. If the truck can only get to 50 mph (80 kph), it would only deliver about 6% of the plane's kinetic energy.
The plane has a much much larger set of targets that it can deliver full kinetic energy to.
The above is assuming the pilot decides to fly into the target on a fairly level flight path and obeying the manufacturer's safety limits. If the pilot is willing to fly unsafely before the crash, he could probably got 2x to 4x the kinetic energy.
In short, a stolen fully loaded truck is a much smaller threat than a stolen empty Q400, unless what the truck is loaded with is also a threat.
If you have a choice between knowingly killing a man (and perhaps several people on the gound) and waiting for him to likely crash on his own but possibly land the plane with no injuries, why would you choose the former? You can always fire on him later if it looks like he's going to be a danger to large populated areas, but if you fire on him now you know you're going to be a danger.
Both TFA and your link indicate that ATC had him flying over Puget Sound, the Olympics, and other sparsely-populated areas, and had vectored all other traffic away from him. It's likely that when he flew over densely populated areas it was before the F-15s were scrambled. Watching and seeing how the situation plays out is probably their safest option in this case.
He decided to fly around Mt. Ranier and then decided to head over to the Cascades to take in the beauty and "have a moment of serenity". ATC had no control, but tried to keep him within radio distance by telling him to turn away from the cascades.
And to think, even if they decided to take him down, it would have likely been over a populated area. Unless they disintegrated it with missiles while in the sky, it likely would have ended in a catastrophe. The decision to not take the plan out as soon as they had the chance to safely was interesting. Their lack of action could have resulted in the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands of people.
Interestingly enough though, a lot of people aren't too mad at what he did. Quite a few people have paid their respects to this guy. He took the plane, saw some great views and did a barrel roll, then told the fighter pilot guys he was going to bring it down himself. I do like that most sources aren't trying to paint this guy as the devil. Sure what he did was wrong, but he sure did go out in style. Who else can ever say they did a freaking barrel roll in a commercial airliner.
The way the news outlets handled this was sickening. They all hopped on the opportunity to make a headline that they knew damn well would lead people to believe a fully loaded plane was hijacked mid flight.
Now the implications that a ground crew person was able to board a plan unnoticed, and take off is insane. This brings up the whole perspective of sleeper agents and inside jobs. Most data breaches are from insider threats, who's to say the next big thing isn't mass deaths resulting from insider threats.
Unless they disintegrated it with missiles while in the sky, it likely would have ended in a catastrophe.
And even then I imagine the raining shrapnel (likely burning too) would cause plenty of chaos itself.
The outcome of this was probably near the best (the best being the guy managing to land the plane safely and survive) --- it could've been much much worse.
This. It’s like the situation with police shooting at people reaching for documents in the glovebox - presumption or fear should not be enough to deploy lethal force. Authorities should always strive to reach the best scenario, i.e. everyone safe and sound including perps. This is particularly true in situations where the perp shows clear signs of mental illness.
I was watching a British TV Serial ("Scott and Bailey") recently, and was amazed at the level of professionalism expected from UK police officers (assuming it is a somewhat accurate representation of reality).
One of the lead characters lands into serious, serious trouble when a drunk, fleeing suspect dies in a car crash.
Makes me really sad about the 'shoot first' culture around here ..
Listen to the recording of ATC personnel talking to the rogue pilot. He's just a normal guy with a few screws loose.
I think they correctly assessed this man to be non-threatening to ground targets.
Now, if the guy was non-responsive or erratic or started making threats, I do expect that the F15s might have been used.
The recordings are surreal. He was talking about how beautiful Mount Rainer was and how he was going to check out the Olympics. He even asked for the coordinates to that Orca pod up here that's been in the news lately. I immediately got the sense he wasn't a threat, at least not intentionally - just a guy a bit lost. (Yes obviously I know he was still a major threat regardless of if he meant to do any harm.)
Very much surreal. He seemed very content considering his dire circumstances. Not to take away from the severity of his actions, but the fact that he completed what looked like a barrel roll w/o seemingly any prior flight experience is interesting to say the least.
Sounds like someone who had been contemplating suicide for a long time and was finally getting his wish. I've never felt that way myself but I can definitely see how it could be a huge relief.
Do you trust your hijackers to announce their intention to run into a building? In fact if a 9/11 ever happens again, the hijackers will have a pretty hard job convincing the passengers this is not a suicide mission and they shouldn't rebel. I always thought that is what prevented another 9/11, not confiscating baby milk at airport security checks.
Listen to the ATC recording. It is obvious the guy was not an (intentional) threat and was apparently not near populated areas.
I actually found the ATC recording to be quite moving and very sad. It's frustrating to read comments here assuming he was not shot down because everyone involved was just gullible.
People entrusted to make good decisions did just that.
For what it's worth, I've been through airport security with bottled breast milk a few times and they have never confiscated it, they just run it through the mass spectrometer.
I would imagine there is set of criteria which would absolutely trigger the fighters to bring down the plane, but those were not met, and those in charge erred on the side of caution. Bringing it down aggressively would not be without its own risks, as the aircraft and debris are still going to crash down somewhere. Additionally it means taking the life of a citizen, and causing a lot of damage that the National Guard is then somewhat responsible for, and potential PR backlash. I believe it was clear early on in this case that the guy was not a terrorist, and he didn't intend to hurt anyone, so adopting a "wait and see" approach seems quite smart.
From what I've read, the tower personnel were in communication with the individual. Perhaps they believed they could talk him down.
As far as shooting down the plane, I have no idea how possible that would have been without risking greater collateral damage. Perhaps it could have been done over the sound. But this incident comes to mind: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Palmdale
He didn't give any indication of being a danger to others. He was obviously someone who was dealing with a mental health crisis, while still being present and coherent. The ATCs were trying to talk him down and get him to land; shooting the plane down would have been a last resort, only ordered if he demonstrated he was going to do harm to others.
This should be a wake-up call to everyone in the country. We can't survive without being able to trust and respect each other as human beings. Part of that is recognizing that even the most humble occupations deserve a fair wage and chance at advancement in life.
If we can't respect the people who put in 8 hour days on our behalf and fulfill our obligations to them as responsible business owners/organizers, we are doomed to see repeats of this type of tragedy.
People seek purpose, and many are content to do even the more "mundane" jobs so long as the compensation is fair. Too many places seek to be successful on Wall Street's terms rather than in providing a service to their community.
I'm sure an MBA will surface and tell me I'm wrong, but I've not encountered a workplace that didn't marginalize their workers and generated a tragedy of the likes that has become a hallmark of the last 50 years.
God Speed, Russell. May your death have not been in vain.
[0]Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion in America, Mark Ames