Authorities released the conversations between a suicidal airport employee who stole a commercial jet from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and air traffic controllers. In nearly 12-minutes of audio, it was clear the pilot did not know much about flying, telling controllers that he is on auto-pilot.
As the air traffic controller attempted to find him a place to land, he beings to unravel saying he's worried that he will be roughed up or shot down by anti-aircraft guns.
"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. Oh! They probably have anti-aircraft!”
The air traffic controller tried to reassure the pilot, who he referred to as Rich.
“No, they don’t have any of that stuff. We’re just trying to find a place for you to land safely."
But, Rich said he was not ready to land, and then he started to worry about how quickly he was burning through fuel.
“I’m not quite ready to bring it down just yet, but holy smokes, I got to stop looking at the fuel, because it’s going down quick."
As Rich continued to fly the stolen plane he started to realize that he had no way out.
"This is probably jail time for life, huh?”
Before the plane went down, Rich apologized for his actions.
“I’ve got a lot of people that care about me. It’s going to disappoint them to hear that I did this. I would like to apologize to each and every one of them. Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess. Never really knew it, until now.”
He crashed the empty 76-passenger Q400 jet on a 230-acre island in south Puget Sound which had a population of 20 people, according to the Seattle Times. The crash started a fire, but nobody on the ground was injured.