SEATTLE_A Horizon Q400 made an unauthorized takeoff from Seattle Tacoma International Airport on Friday night and crashed in the south Puget Sound, according to Alaska Airlines. Other flights were temporarily grounded.
The plane was piloted by a 29-year-old Pierce County man and crashed on Ketron Island, the Pierce County Sheriff's Office said. There were no other passengers on the plane.
The sheriff's office said that "this is not a terrorist incident" and that the pilot was a mechanic from an unknown airline. He crashed from either doing stunts or because of a lack of flying skills.
Reached by phone at 9:30 p.m., Horizon Air CEO Gary Beck said it was too early to say anything and that the airline was still gathering information.
On a live air-traffic control feed, the person flying the plane could be heard speaking with an air-traffic controller who addressed him as Rich and Richard.
Rich seemed excited as he spoke, though also carefree and wild.
At one point he explained he had put some gas in the plane "to go check out the Olympics... and uh, yeah."
Then later he began to worry about his fuel.
"I'm down to 2100 (pounds)," he told the ATC. "I started at 30 something. ... I don't know what the burnage is like on takeoff, but it burned quite a bit faster than I expected.
The air-traffic controller responded calmly, seeming not to want to upset Rich as the conversation continued and he tried to coax Rich into landing somewhere.
"There is the runway just off to your right side in about a mile," the controller told him. "That's McChord" (meaning the military airfield at Joint Base Lewis-McChord).
"Oh man," Rich immediately responded, "Those guys will rough me up if I try and land there. I think I might mess something up there too. I wouldn't want to do that. They probably have anti-aircraft."
"They don't have any of that stuff," the air-traffic controller said. "We're just trying to find a place for you to land safely."
"I'm not quite ready to bring it down just yet," Rich said. "But holy smokes, I got to stop looking at the fuel, because it's going down quick."
"Could you start a left turn and we'll take you down to the SE, please," the air traffic controller then asked.
"This is probably jail time for life, huh?" said Rich. "I would hope it is for a guy like me."
"Oh, Richard," said the controller, "We're not going to worry or think about that. But could you start a left turn please??
A witness on the ground, Bryan Sichley, said he was at Chambers Bay in Tacoma and saw a plane nose dive after being chased by two fighter jets. The Federal Aviation Administration reported about 9:30 p.m. that a plane crashed.
Royal King of Mukilteo was photographing a wedding at Lake Steilacoom when he saw a low-flying Q400 plane and two F15 fighter jets trailing it. He knew something was off, he said Friday night.
He then saw the two jets come back around toward him, but not the plane. He didn't hear the crash, but saw smoke.
"It was unfathomable, it was something out of a movie," he said. "The smoke lingered. You could still hear the F-15s, which were flying low."
He said he was shaken up by what he saw, and what he heard afterward.
"That's somebody's son or husband or daughter. This is a tragedy," he said.
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