Originally published at: Man charged with 83 counts of attempted murder after trying to crash jet | Boing Boing
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Jesus Christ. And Alaska airlines had a near miss collision.
I am sure some of it is just cognitive bias, but with so many near misses lately, I have a bad feeling something is going to “hit” soon. 
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My Dad was a pilot with USAir. Pilots are allowed to fly “jump seat” in the cockpit if there are no available standby seats. I believe it’s only within their own company.
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Everett? That’s Trump country.
Alsaka allows any OneWorld employee who is based at a different homebase to have jumpseat privs. Or , at least, they used to. I’d imagine cockpit jumpseats are forever going to be closed and those travellers will get bumped to economy if they’re line workers or first if they’re repositioning.
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Yeah, Frank Abagnale’s exploits deadheading in a Pan-Am pilot’s uniform (as seen in Catch Me If You Can) really ruined the cooperation deal they used to have between airlines.
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The suspect was en route to San Francisco, where he was scheduled to be on a flight crew of a 737, the official said.
I’m guessing we may not be dealing with a rational actor here but I still wonder; if he wanted to crash a plane why not do it on the plane he was already scheduled to fly?
Scary how for all our security measures it still always comes down to entrusting our lives to one or two people controlling the machine.
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It sounds like he had a mental issue related to a close friend of his dying very recently. This is one of those hidden “things” about pilots that most people aren’t aware of. Commercial airline pilots cannot get any type of therapy without being grounded by the FAA during the entirety of the treatment and for at least 90 days. This results in pilots hiding their conditions because , well, the alternative is suddenly you don’t have a paycheck for 3 months.
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That’s the second incident I’ve heard of where a dead-heading employee tried to crash the plane. The other is FedEx Flight 705. I don’t know if there are other cases, but the fact that this guy apparently tried it on a passenger flight (FedEx 705 was a freighter) is extra-horrifying.
A friend of mine is a commercial pilot. I am trying to imagine him getting therapy for anything, because he is one of the intentionally craziest dudes I know. I have many fond memories of doubling over in laughter from some of the shit he shares. Keep in mind, his tolerance for unimaginable situations has to be pretty high. The hilarity he propagates is likely a way to blow off steam, but at the same time, he was like that long before he became a pilot. As I remember, he and I have had some of the deeper conversations than I have had with any other of my friends. That being said, certain pilots are overdue for treatment and do need to get immediate professional help. Case in point.
as a cop, shoot someone and get paid vacation. as a pilot, ask for help so you don’t murder anyone and lose pay.
ahg 
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There are a number of cases where a crash is known or believed to have been deliberately caused by a member of the flight crew (as in the case of the Germanwings flight). But I was talking about the slightly-different case of incidents involving employees who were ‘dead-heading’ – getting a free ride on a company aircraft, but not actually a member of the crew. I have the idea that there’s at least one other case (besides this one and the FedEx one), but I don’t remember the details.
There are, of course, a much larger number of cases where dead-heading crew have provided critical assistance to the actual flight crew in an emergency.
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