A thread about Skyking

This is probably a story familiar to a lot of you but for those not familiar or those who have forgotten, Richard “Beebo” Russel aged 29 worked as a baggage handler at a small airport in Washington. He was married for a number of years and had enrolled in a community college

He was a normal guy, he liked to make people laugh, and had normal guy aspirations: getting a management position, starting a successful small business. But on August 10th 2018 he decided to steal a commercial plane and fly it around before crashing it and ending his own life

The audio transcript and some footage is available on YouTube. This is a link to the conversation between between Richard and air traffic control, some parts may have been edited out but this is where most of the quotes you see on backgrounds come from

Richard was followed by fighter jets but they didn’t shoot him down. Presumably if Richard had gotten to close to any people or government property they would have had no choice.

Someone on the ground was able to capture footage of Richard performing the barrel roll, remarkably if he had been just a little bit lower he would have crashed into the ocean before completing the maneuver. The head of horizon air called the maneuver incredible,

made all the more so because Richard had never flown before.

Why did he do this?

The only indication that he was going to try something like this was that he complained about his job, he and his wife had tried to start a bakery which lasted 3 years. Then he had to make ends meet at a minimum wage job. In his conversation with air control he called himself

“Just a broken guy”

There’s still no clear indication of why exactly he wanted to take the plane besides just for the sake of it. Maybe he wasn’t suicidal at all and just wanted to go on a joyride but knowing that he would probably face life in prison decided to crash it

We each transpose are own meanings onto events like this but knowing someone whose tried to kill themselves this story always hits a little different for me. You can try to talk someone off the ledge but ultimately that choice is theirs, you can’t change other people

I think that’s why this story sticks with people, he was just a normal guy no way to “see it coming.” But really it was almost 3 decades of “it coming” and by that time it was already too late to do anything about it. When he climbed into the cockpit, he didn’t have a choice

I think that’s a hard truth and something people need to learn to live with, that sometimes you can’t do anything and never could.

Either way, listen to the audio and thanks for making it to the end of this long and rambling thread