Off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot charged with attempted murder after trying to stop engines mid-flight

return2ozma@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 395 points –
Off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot charged with attempted murder after trying to stop engines mid-flight
nbcnews.com
70

You are viewing a single comment

This America, buy a gun.

Or find a bridge.

Or Google the "best" ways and pick one.

This is something different. Either wannabe mass shooter who didn't think he had the skills to get the body count he wanted, or he wanted his name to stick around longer than the 30 secs that the names of shooters do these days, or he was mad at his employer and wanted to hurt them...or....

Point is, he didn't just want to kill himself, he wanted to do it while causing a standout mass casualty event.

Edit: I do want to add that it's at least possible he had an immediate acute psychiatric issue e.g. Schizophrenic break and thought the plane was full of aliens, or something along those lines.

No way he would have become a transport pilot with such psychological issues.

I agree that it's most likely he just wanted to kill a lot of people, along with himself.

But, late-onset schizophrenia is a thing and it appears in men during their 40s. I'm sure there are plenty of other psychological issues that either only appear later in life, or that some people are able to mask/hide. My point was that it's a possible explanation, not that it was the most likely one.

Edit: Looks like "acute psychiatric event" might be the most plausible explanation, at least according the FBI's current publicly available understanding of the incident.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/fbi-off-duty-alaska-pilot-declared-im-not-ok-then-tried-to-shut-down-engines/

2 more...