Hulu’s documentary “#SkyKing” premieres Tuesday and revisits the life of Richard “Beebo” Russell, the 28-year-old who stole an empty Horizon Air Bombardier Q400 turboprop from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Aug. 10, 2018, then flew it for about an hour before crashing on Ketron Island.
Russell died in the crash. No one else was on the plane, and no one on the ground was hurt, but the flight’s radio exchanges turned the theft into one of the most unsettling episodes in recent aviation memory. He talked with the control tower and another pilot while flying over the Puget Sound region, and audio from the conversation ran about 11 minutes.
The film lands now with the basic facts still carrying their own shock: a man with no passengers, no ground casualties and no declared manifesto was able to take off, circle the region and bring a commercial turboprop down near Steilacoom. Russell’s words from the cockpit still hover over the case. He called flying the plane “a blast,” said, “I got a lot of people that care about me,” added, “And it’s going to disappoint them to hear that I did this,” and apologized “to each and every one of them.” He also described himself as “Just a broken guy,” said, “Got a few screws loose, I guess,” and asked, “Hey, pilot guy, can this thing do, uh, a backflip thing?”
An FBI report later said Russell did not make any phone calls while in the cockpit, and text messages leading up to the incident did not indicate any motive or intention to steal an airplane. Investigators found no evidence that terrorism played a role. The report also said Russell was familiar with the checklist required to start the airplane and that his internet search history showed he had looked for videos on how to fly an airplane.
That mix of improvisation, radio chatter and emptiness is what keeps the story in view seven years later. “#SkyKing” arrives as a reminder that the theft was not just a breach of security but a real-time conversation between a lonely man in a stolen plane and the people trying to talk him down, ending only when the aircraft hit Ketron Island.
