‘This is probably jail time for life’ worker says before crashing plane

Seattle: An airline worker stole an empty Alaska Airlines plane from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Washington on Friday night, and the National Guard scrambled two fighter jets to chase the aircraft, which crashed on a sparsely populated island in Puget Sound, officials said.

The plane made an unauthorised take-off from the airport around 8pm and crashed on Ketron Island, about five miles southwest of Tacoma, after the renegade pilot bantered erratically with air traffic controllers who pleaded with him to land the plane, according to officials and dispatch audio.

“This is probably jail time for life, huh?” said the man, identified on the radio as Rich, according to dispatch audio reviewed by the Seattle Times. “I would hope it is for a guy like me.”

“Oh, Richard,” said an air traffic controller, “We’re not going to worry or think about that. But could you start a left turn please?”

The employee added: “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 apologise to each and every one of them. Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess. Never really knew it, until now.”

At another point, the employee said: “I’m gonna land it, in a safe kind of manner. I think I’m gonna try to do a barrel roll, and if that goes good, I’m just gonna nose down and call it a night.”

Video posted by witnesses on social media showed the plane making a barrel roll over what appears to be Puget Sound, with some people crying out in terror as the plane exited the roll in a dive toward the water, before barely pulling up in time and flying away.

“Oh my god, oh my god, he’s OK? He’s OK,” one woman said in a video posted on Facebook, which showed at least one military jet in pursuit. It’s not clear how long afterward it was before the plane crashed.