2018 Horizon Air Bombardier Q400 Incident

On the evening of August 10, 2018, a De Havilland Canada Dash 8-400 (Bombardier Q400) operated by Horizon Air for Alaska Airlines was taken without authorization from Seattle–Tacoma International Airport. The aircraft, registered N449QX, had landed earlier that afternoon following a flight from Victoria, British Columbia, and was not scheduled to fly again. It was taken from a cargo area at the north end of the airport by Richard Russell, a 28-year-old Horizon Air ground service agent with no piloting experience, who taxied it to a runway and performed an unauthorized takeoff at approximately 19:32 local time.

Seattle air traffic control made contact with Russell, the sole occupant, during the flight. In recorded transmissions later shared publicly, Russell described himself as a "broken guy" with "a few screws loose." He declined a controller's suggestion to land at Joint Base Lewis–McChord, expressed a wish to see a well-known orca, and said he did not intend to hurt anyone. In response to the unauthorized flight, two F-15C fighter jets from the Oregon Air National Guard were scrambled from Portland Air National Guard Base, along with a refueling tanker from Fairchild Air Force Base. The fighters did not fire on the aircraft and attempted to direct it toward the Pacific Ocean. Sea-Tac Airport temporarily suspended flight operations during the incident.

Approximately one hour and fifteen minutes after takeoff, Russell executed a barrel roll over Puget Sound before intentionally crashing the aircraft on Ketron Island, a sparsely populated island in Pierce County, Washington, at around 20:43 local time. Russell was killed; no other injuries were reported despite the crash site's proximity to an occupied cabin. The resulting fire burned about two acres before being extinguished.

The Pierce County Sheriff's Office stated the incident did not constitute an act of terrorism and described Russell as suicidal. The Federal Bureau of Investigation led the subsequent investigation, recovering the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder components for analysis by the National Transportation Safety Board. On November 9, 2018, the FBI announced it had completed its investigation, ruling out terrorism and determining that Russell acted alone. The FBI concluded the final descent was intentional and listed suicide as the manner of death, stating that interviews with colleagues, friends, and family, along with a review of text messages, revealed no clear motivation for Russell's actions and no connection to broader criminal or terrorist activity.

Russell had worked for Horizon Air for about four years as part of a tow team and was described by a supervisor as quiet and well liked. Colleagues and reporting after the incident noted he had no known pilot's license, and some speculated he may have trained himself using flight simulation software. In April 2022, the FBI released more than 500 pages of documents related to its investigation.