But federal investigators, Sea-Tac officials and his employer, are scrambling to figure out how Richard Russell managed to steal a 76-passenger Horizon Air turboprop plane, take off from one of the busiest airports in the country and fly it around South Puget Sound before a fiery twilight crash Friday evening. “The responding fighter pilots flew alongside the aircraft and were ready to do whatever was needed to protect us,” Washington State governor Jay Inslee tweeted on Friday, “but in the end the man flying the stolen plane crashed.”

“The person who stole it was either doing it on a lark, or was suicidal,” Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor said on Friday. The 29-year-old man took off in a stolen 76-seat Horizon Air Q-400 turboprop, then flew the plane for about an hour — during which he performed aerobatic stunts and was chased by two U.S. F-15 fighter jets — before crashing on Ketron Island in south Puget Sound some 25 miles from the airport. Preliminary information suggests that the 29-year-old mechanic stole the Horizon Air Q400 and the crash occurred because the person was “doing stunts in the air or (had a) lack of flying skills”, the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department said. John Waldrop shared the following footage from Chambers Bay Golf Course:

Alaska Airlines, the parent company of Horizon, released the following statement late Friday night:

"Alaska Airlines believes a ground service agent employed by Horizon Air was the individual responsible for flying the Horizon Q400 without clearance from Sea-Tac International Airport around 8 p.m. tonight. Alaska Airlines said no structures on the ground were damaged. Jay Inslee thanked the Air National Guard from Washington and Oregon for scrambling jets and said in a statement "there are still a lot of unknowns surrounding tonight's tragic incident."
An airport mechanic steals a Horizon Air Bombardier Q400 from Seattle–Tacoma International Airport in the United States, eventually crashing the plane on Ketron Island.