3A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 2018
Friendly tone belied acts of Seattle plane thief
Crashed on
Ketron Island
By GENE JOHNSON
Associated Press
SEATTLE — He cracked
jokes, complimented the pro-
fessional demeanor of an air
traffic controller and apolo-
gized for making a fuss.
But the friendly tone of a
29-year-old airport worker
who stole a commercial plane
Friday night, performing acro-
batic stunts before the fatal
plunge into a thick island
forest, belied his desperate
actions.
“I think I’m going to try
to do a barrel roll, and if that
goes good I’ll go nose down
and call it a night,” Richard
Russell said from the cock-
pit, according to a recording
of his conversation with the
controller.
The Pierce County Med-
ical Examiner’s Office con-
firmed Sunday that Russell
had died in the fiery wreck-
age, but whether the crash was
deliberate or accidental was
one of several topics remain-
ing for investigators.
Others
include
how,
nearly 17 years after the 9/11
attack, someone can simply
take a passenger plane from
a major U.S. airport without
authorization.
Two F-15C aircraft were
scrambled from Portland and
pursued the plane but author-
ities say they didn’t fire on it
before it crashed.
The bizarre incident points
to one of the biggest poten-
tial perils for commercial
air travel: airline or airport
employees causing mayhem.
“The greatest threat we
have to aviation is the insider
threat,” Erroll Southers, a for-
mer FBI agent and transpor-
tation security expert, told
the AP. “Here we have an
employee who was vetted to
the level to have access to the
aircraft and had a skill set pro-
ficient enough to take off with
that plane.”
Richard Russell/YouTube
Richard Russell, an airline ground agent, stole an empty
commercial airplane on Friday.
AP Photo/Ted S. Warren
A stolen Horizon Air turboprop plane flying over Eatonville, Wash., on Friday.
Smoke and an orange glow are seen on Ketron Island in
Washington state early Saturday after a plane crash Fri-
day night.
The Seattle FBI office said
Sunday that it had recovered
the flight data recorder and
components of the cockpit
voice recorder from the Hori-
zon plane. The National Trans-
portation Safety Board is now
processing the equipment.
The FBI also said it found
human remains among the
wreckage.
Tragic as Russell’s death
was, he could have inflicted
vastly more damage had he
been so inclined. Potential
targets included tens of thou-
sands of fans assembling at
Safeco Field, about 12 miles
away, for a sold-out Pearl Jam
concert just as he took off.
“Last night’s event is going
to push us to learn what we
can from this tragedy so that
we can ensure this does not
troller: “You are very calm,
collect, poised,” he said.
He said flying was a “blast”
and that he didn’t need much
help: “I’ve played some video
games before.”
“You think if I land this
successfully Alaska will give
me a job as a pilot?” he joked.
He also told the controller
he “wasn’t really planning on
landing” the aircraft, and he
described himself as “just a
broken guy.”
Authorities sent fighter jets
to escort him, and the control-
ler repeatedly tried to direct
him to runways. But the plane
slammed into tiny Ketron
Island, a sparsely populated
island southwest of Tacoma.
Russell went by “Beebo”
on social media. On his Face-
book page, which had limited
Courtney Junka
happen again at Alaska Air
Group or at any other airline,”
Brad Tilden, CEO of Alaska
Airlines, told a news confer-
ence Saturday.
The plane was a Bombar-
dier Q400, a turboprop that
seats 76 people, owned by
Horizon Air, part of Alaska
Airlines. It had been parked at
a cargo and maintenance area
for the night after arriving
from Victoria, British Colum-
bia, earlier in the day.
Russell, a 3½-year Horizon
employee, worked as a ground
service agent. His responsi-
bilities included towing and
pushing aircraft for takeoff
and gate approach, de-icing
them, and handling baggage.
Authorities said he used a
tractor to rotate the plane 180
degrees, positioning it so that
After 17 days and 1,000 miles, a
mother orca’s ‘tour of grief’ is over
By JENNY GATHRIGHT
National Public Radio
After carrying her deceased
baby for at least 17 days and
1,000 miles, an orca mother
has shown signs of returning to
normal.
She was seen Saturday with
fellow members of her pod,
chasing a school of salmon.
She is no longer carrying her
baby and she looks healthy.
“Her tour of grief is now over
and her behavior is remarkably
frisky,” according to a state-
ment on the Center for Whale
Research’s website.
Researchers
commonly
refer to the mother orca as J-35.
She’s also known as Tahlequah,
a name she was given as part of
the adopt a whale program at
The Whale Museum on Wash-
ington’s San Juan Island.
Her recovery is import-
ant — not just for her own
health, but for the health of the
rest of her pod. National Pub-
lic Radio’s Colin Dwyer previ-
ously reported that “given the
fact that orcas move in matri-
lineal groups, dependent on
mothers and grandmothers,”
Tahlequah’s death would put
her adult son and others in
danger.
Not a single orca born in
the past three years has been
known to survive, according to
the Center for Whale Research.
That’s why the fact that Tahle-
quah recently gave birth was
so exciting, if only for a brief
moment. Her calf died just 30
minutes after it was first spot-
ted by a whale watch operator
on July 24.
The Center for Whale
Research keeps track of every
single known orca (known
more formally as the southern
resident killer whale), and as
of December 2017, the popu-
lation contains just 76 whales.
According to NPR’s Dwyer,
the population of south-
ern resident killer whales has
decreased by about a quarter
in the past 20 years, largely
because their food source, the
Chinook salmon, has also seen
a dramatic population decline.
Jenny Atkinson, executive
director of The Whale Museum,
told “Here & Now’s” Jer-
emy Hobson that Tahlequah’s
grieving period was unusually
long. Typically, Atkinson said,
researchers have seen mothers
carry stillborn calves for “a day
or so.” But Tahlequah’s baby
was not stillborn. “She carried
this for 17 months before it was
born,” Atkinson said. “And we
know that it swam by her side
… so there is a part of me that
believes that the grief could be
much deeper because they had
bonded.”
Atkinson said it made sense
that Tahlequah’s grief gener-
ated a global response. “Orcas
… are charismatic mega-
fauna,” she said. “You’re
going to feel that pain of grief
— particularly if you’ve gone
through grief in your own life.”
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Starting August 16th Thru August 19th 2018, Cross Stitchers from all over the world will descend on a small Oregon town,
Seaside, for the 3rd Annual Heaven and Earth Designs Convention, or HAEDcon, as it’s known in the Cross Stitching world.
A Stitching Convention for cross stitching you say? Well things have changed. Gone are the days of cute teddy bears and
flowers. HAEDCon is a convention sponsored by the locally owned company, Heaven and Earth Designs. Attendees come
to see finished stitched pieces, socialize, and shop! Cross stitchers from all over the world—Iceland, Australia, the United
Kingdom—are just days away from meeting new friends, meeting old friends, and meeting the artists behind the work they
stitch. Everyone has great ideas about spending four days stitching, but from past experience the amount of talking, laughter,
‘Stitchtalk’, and adding to one’s stash is a must for any attendee.
A loyal following quickly came to Michele and Bob Sayetta, who packed up six years ago and moved from Minnesota to a
small coastal town in Oregon. Starting in 2002, the Husband and Wife team changed how people viewed cross stitch. They
began by creating the most stunning hand dyed fabric to be used for stitching. Michele’s talent for color came naturally to
the Californian-born computer programmer. This was the beginning of Heaven and Earth Designs. They then moved onto
converting famous artwork into cross stitch charts by artists all over the world. Adding to these works of art, Michele and
Bob also hand craft many coveted stitching tools. As well, they also feature beautiful linens and cloths from well-known
manufacturers such as ZWEIGART, as well as stitching floss from DMC, direct from France. Heaven and Earth Designs has a
small dedicated team that send out hundreds of the now famous “purple package” to fulfill orders that range from a chart to
fabric, floss and tools.
The Heaven and Earth Designs Convention also features artists whose stunning pieces have been transformed into cross
stitching charts. Returning for her third year, artist Aimee Stewart says, “If a unicorn wearing roller skates and juggling polka
dot lemurs streaked by just now singing the Macarena at the top of its lungs... it STILL wouldn’t be as fun as HAEDCon!”
Also joining Aimee this year are returning artists - Hannah Lynn Disney, Rob and Jean Carlos, Jeff Haynie, and, for the first
time, we welcome artists Randal Spangler and Joan Marie.
Stitchers are enthusiastic to arrive, with one stitcher saying they, “Feel like they are attending the ‘Oscars’ of Cross Stitching.
The Countdown to HAEDcon is on.
Heaven and Earth Designs Convention
16 - 19th August 2018 • Seaside Convention Center
Visitors Welcome • Day Passes for Artists and Product
Once registration is over for registered customers entrance will only be
permitted for walk ins by calling 503-440-0924 to be met at the front desk
www.heavenandearthdesigns.com
he could taxi toward a run-
way. They said it’s not clear
whether he had ever taken
flight lessons or used flight
simulators, or where he gained
the skills to take off. The plane
didn’t require a key, but it did
require buttons and switches
to be activated in a particular
order.
His 75-minute flight during
the golden twilight took him
south and west, toward the
Olympic Mountains. As a
flight controller tried to per-
suade him to land, he won-
dered aloud about whether he
had enough fuel to make it to
the Olympics, talked of the
beautiful view, and said he
had a lot of people who cared
about him, apologizing for
what he was doing.
He complimented the con-
public access, he said he was
from Wasilla, Alaska; lived in
Sumner, Washington; and was
married in 2012.
In a humorous YouTube
video he posted last year,
he talked about his job and
included videos and photos of
his travels.
“I lift a lot of bags. Like a
lot of bags. So many bags,” he
said.
Russell’s family said in
a statement that they were
stunned and heartbroken.
They said it’s clear Russell
didn’t intend to harm anyone,
and “he was right in saying
that there are so many people
who loved him.”
Associated Press reporters
Rachel La Corte in Olympia,
Washington, and Keith Ridler
in Boise, Idaho, contributed.