He was not a pilot he worked ground crew for Horizon Air. Inside the SeaTac terminals, the indignities of airport security were in full force: Transportation Security Administration agents were X-raying shoes, forcing travelers to toss out tubes of toothpaste, and palpating passengers’ private parts with the backs of blue-gloved hands to guard against box cutters being smuggled in their bras or briefs. It was August 10th, 2018, a warm, clear evening nearly two decades after 9/11. He scrambled into the fuselage and hoisted up the hatch before flinging himself into the captain’s seat. In a frantic, seven-second dash, the husky 28-year-old abandoned the truck and sprinted to the lowered passenger-entry door. The thief, Richard “Beebo” Russell, had just disconnected the tow bar of a tug vehicle he’d used to pivot the plane out of its parking spot. But without anyone riding the brakes, the 13-foot propellers began pushing the plane slowly toward the runways of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The twin engines of the Horizon Air Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 aircraft had been set to idle. The stolen airplane began rolling forward under its own power, with no one in the cockpit.
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