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Seattle airliner stolen and crashed


F-15E WSO

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3 hours ago, Kenny Powers said:

You're suggesting that a shootdown situation would have ended better than the actual event did?

There is a far greater than 0% chance that the guy maniacally laughing about crashing 50,000+ lbs of metal and Jet-A decides to turn towards the major metro area what, 3 nm miles away and go out in a bigger bang of glory. Then what?

The hostile aircraft is orbiting over the water, ******* do something! What’s next? “Yeah the bears were over the lower 48, but their bomb bay doors weren’t open yet”? Hostile aircraft flying over water, shoot it down, end of story. If you can’t shoot down a stolen, erratically flown aircraft within 2 mins of killing thousands of civilians then save tax payer money and cancel the entire homeland defense mission! What a joke.

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17 minutes ago, pintail21 said:

There is a far greater than 0% chance that the guy maniacally laughing about crashing 50,000+ lbs of metal and Jet-A decides to turn towards the major metro area what, 3 nm miles away and go out in a bigger bang of glory. Then what?

The hostile aircraft is orbiting over the water, ******* do something! What’s next? “Yeah the bears were over the lower 48, but their bomb bay doors weren’t open yet”? Hostile aircraft flying over water, shoot it down, end of story. If you can’t shoot down a stolen, erratically flown aircraft within 2 mins of killing thousands of civilians then save tax payer money and cancel the entire homeland defense mission! What a joke.

We had F-15s ready to shoot it down, it wasn't required. You're upset?

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Sounded like maybe  the guy was talking to ATC for a bit before the 15s arrived. He was well south of the city and attempts by ATC to affect his routing we’re having some degree of success. It sounded like they may be able to talk him down. They certainly hadn’t confirmed that he was the only one on board either. In that situation I’m sure there was discussion at NORAD as to whether a shoot down was warranted.  If the guy stopped transmitting and made a run for downtown, I imagine the decision would’ve become instantly easier. 

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1 hour ago, Kenny Powers said:

I disagree. We didn't get lucky, our process worked. We knew the situation, the Eagle pilots and ATC fed up to date information to everyone involved, and the decision was made to NOT shoot this aircraft down based on the threat it posed. Had the threat assessment changed, then the decision to shoot it down would have changed.

I agree with this.

VASAviation came out amazingly quick with the audio combo, and the clips are different then what was playing on Fox News.

 

He flew out to the water, stayed there, said he didn't want to hurt people, and when he joked about it, ATC clarified that he was joking. 

He seems more like the "One of these days I'm going to take these things for a joy ride YOLO." I think the gravity of the situation hit him in the middle of it.

The F-15s were there, if he displayed any kind of hostile intent (and botching a barrel roll over water isn't hostile intent), he would have been splashed quickly. 

 

 

Edited by xaarman
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1 hour ago, Prozac said:

In that situation I’m sure there was discussion at NORAD as to whether a shoot down was warranted.  If the guy stopped transmitting and made a run for downtown, I imagine the decision would’ve become instantly easier. 

Yep, IMHO that would fall under the category of "Suicide by NORAD" and most likely it would be justified/legal (example; see suicide by cop). 

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I’ve never been stationed at McChord and I’ve only flown there twice. If this guy had turned toward a populated area, would there have been enough time to take him out? I’m hoping that one of the jets was constantly staying in the WEZ as they were circling.

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14 hours ago, xaarman said:

Part 2 of the audio posted, haven't seen this in the other videos:

 

 

edit: definitely seems more like a joyride then ran out of fuel

I don't know.  He says (after the botched roll) that he was "kind of hoping that would be it" and mentions wanting to take in the sights one last time.  Sad to listen to.

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After I retired from the AF, I worked briefly as an Operations Agent at a major airline. I was surprised to learn that the ramp guys (usually the supervisor) rode brakes when they towed the aircraft to remote parking for the night. They had to operate the APU’s, radios, fuel pumps, electric hydraulic pumps, etc. all without an A&P or any other certification or license. I wonder if this guy did the same thing. 

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1 hour ago, HeyEng said:

After I retired from the AF, I worked briefly as an Operations Agent at a major airline. I was surprised to learn that the ramp guys (usually the supervisor) rode brakes when they towed the aircraft to remote parking for the night. They had to operate the APU’s, radios, fuel pumps, electric hydraulic pumps, etc. all without an A&P or any other certification or license. I wonder if this guy did the same thing. 

That sounds line a task easily done by someone with OJT. But I’m not an expert on rules that would govern that activity. 

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On 8/11/2018 at 4:59 PM, pintail21 said:

There is a far greater than 0% chance that the guy maniacally laughing about crashing 50,000+ lbs of metal and Jet-A decides to turn towards the major metro area what, 3 nm miles away and go out in a bigger bang of glory. Then what?

The hostile aircraft is orbiting over the water, ******* do something! What’s next? “Yeah the bears were over the lower 48, but their bomb bay doors weren’t open yet”? Hostile aircraft flying over water, shoot it down, end of story. If you can’t shoot down a stolen, erratically flown aircraft within 2 mins of killing thousands of civilians then save tax payer money and cancel the entire homeland defense mission! What a joke.

Right on brother!

Also, we should have airborne DCA up over every TFR in the country ready to blast NORDO Cessna 150s out of the sky the moment they cross the line.  Actually on second thought, DCA with blanket clearance to Fox 3 based on predictive path of any aircraft that approach the restriction.

I assume for consistency's sake when it comes to your risk aversion that you rate preflight walkaround as extreme risk on your ORM worksheet?

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5 hours ago, Mark1 said:

I assume for consistency's sake when it comes to your risk aversion that you rate preflight walkaround as extreme risk on your ORM worksheet?

I don’t know about him, but that’s why the copilots always do my walk around...  😂

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8 hours ago, Mark1 said:

Right on brother!

Also, we should have airborne DCA up over every TFR in the country ready to blast NORDO Cessna 150s out of the sky the moment they cross the line.  Actually on second thought, DCA with blanket clearance to Fox 3 based on predictive path of any aircraft that approach the restriction.

I assume for consistency's sake when it comes to your risk aversion that you rate preflight walkaround as extreme risk on your ORM worksheet?

Hijacked aircraft comparison to lack of SA crop duster, makes sense 

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I’d say a 40,000lb airliner with a suicidal pilot who has already committed several felonies is closer to 9/11 than a 1,600lb Cessna wandering around NORDO. Apologies if I don’t follow your logic.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

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