[Victor Blackwell, Cnn:] Good morning, I'm Victor Blackwell.
[Christi Paul, Cnn:] And I'm Christi Paul. So glad to have you here. We have breaking news to tell you about that happened overnight. A regional airline employee steals an empty plane and takes off and then starts doing aerial maneuvers.
[Blackwell:] This happened just after 8:00 Seattle time. Within minutes, military jets were right behind him. He flew the plane for about an hour and then crashed into a wooded area 40 miles from the airport.
[Paul:] We're learning more about the man who apparently stole that plane, by the way. The Pierce County sheriff's office says it was not a terrorist incident. We want to make this very clear. This is not a terrorist incident.
[Blackwell:] That is important to point out. They did not identify this man but they said he is a 29-year-old man who they say was suicidal. Here's a closer look at what happened.
[Unidentified Female:] There is a ground stop. No one is departing right now. They're working out an issue close to our air space.
[Blackwell:] [voice over] With those words to airline pilots all traffic was stopped at Washington State Seattle Tacoma airport known as Sea-Tac after what's being called an unauthorized takeoff of a Q- 400 turbo prop plane from Horizon Air owned by the Alaska Air Group. The company COO said in a video statement that the aircraft was taken by a single Horizon Air employee and no passengers were onboard. The Pearce County sheriff said the man was a 29-year-old ground service agent. What happened next was a bizarre display in the skies above South Puget Sound. The agent was in touch with air traffic controllers and, apparently, performed stunts in the 76-seater plane. They tried to talk him down to a safe landing.
[Unidentified Male:] Congratulations, you did that. Now, let's try to land that airplane safely and not hurt anybody on the ground. All right. I don't know man, I don't know. I don't want to. I was kind of hoping that would be it, you know.
[Blackwell:] Air National Guard jets were scrambled and Washington's Governor Jay Inslee tweeted that fighter pilots flew alongside the aircraft and were ready to do whatever was needed to protect citizens, but, in the end, the man flying the stolen plane crashed. Pictures from CNN affiliate KOMO showed flaming debris on nearby Ketron Island, the site of the crash.
[Unidentified Female:] The plane literally at that moment was flying right over our deck and right behind it were F-15s. We'd never seen a plane that low over our deck before and shortly thereafter we saw a giant plume of black smoke out in the distance.
[Paul:] We have more audio from inside the cockpit of that plane, as well, where that man, who we understand was a ground service agent, talked about what he was trying to do.
[Unidentified Male:] I'm going to try to do a barrel roll and if that goes good, I'm going to nose down and call it a night.
[Blackwell:] Joining us on the phone now is John Waldron. John, thank you for being with us. It's a late night for you there on the West Coast, early morning for us here on the East Coast. We'll keep it short. You looked up and saw those fighter jets escorting the stolen plane. At any point up to that point, did you realize or recognize that something was wrong or was the presence of those jets the first sign for you?
[John Waldron, Witness To Stolen Plane Flight:] Well, we have two large military bases within about ten miles from where this all happened so, it's not uncommon to see, you know, fighter aircraft up in the air. But to see them in the manner they were flying and at that location where they were at was a little bit bizarre. So, I started to tape the aircraft and then out of nowhere the guy that was flying this Q-400 just pulled the stick back and put this thing into a complete loop and I honestly thought he was going to stall and hit the water. But, you know, I mean, it was just very shocking to see so I just kept taping and I was completely unaware of what had actually happened at the airport. I had no idea the plane had been hijacked or what was going on. It appeared the two fighter jets were escorting him; they were alongside him and then they would trail behind him. You know, I don't know what they were trying to do at that time, obviously, because, like I said, I was unclear about what actually was going on and then he headed down towards where he eventually crashed at. He actually pulled the nose back up, again, and I thought he was going to stall, again and he made his way down toward [inaudible]. I looked again and he was in a nose dive and he went into the ground, straight in the ground. I saw a brief flash of flame and a big plume of smoke and the sound of the explosion. I just had a bad feeling that it wasn't an exercise or anything. I just knew he had crashed at that point.
[Paul:] You said earlier that everyone was literally frozen in place. What conversations were you having? What were you thinking? What were you all standing there, in that moment?
[Waldron:] I think we were all just completely in awe first of all, over the type of flying this individual is doing because it just my first thought is either he doesn't have any flight experience in this aircraft and he's unfamiliar with the controls or perhaps he is a stunt pilot and he's showing off or something. But it's very uncommon to see two military aircraft like that trailing behind. So, we're all kind of sitting there with our jaws on the ground. You know, like, what just happened? I think maybe a military exercise but over that area would have been very uncommon because that's not, that's a civilian island with little beach cabins on it. It's populated very sparsely but it's just, it's very bizarre to that area. No air shows were scheduled or anything that I was aware of. So, to see this type of flying was just, it was way off what is normal.
[Blackwell:] All right, John Waldron, this amazing video that you shot really helps us understand what happened in those minutes over South Puget Sound. John Waldron, thanks for staying up late for us.
[Waldron:] Oh, you're welcome, sir. Thank you, it's a pleasure.
[Paul:] Thank you, John.
[Blackwell:] All right joining us now to talk more about this, Mary Schiavo, CNN transportation analyst, former Inspector General for the Department of Transportation and Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona CNN military analyst. Good morning to both of you and I'll start here, before we get into the psychology of this ground service agent and all the particulars, the big headline question is, how in post-911 America does a ground service agent get access to a plane and have the possibility of doing something like this? Let me start with you, Mary.
[Mary Schiavo, Cnn Transportation Analyst:] Well, this was a question that Congress asked just last year. The House Homeland Security Committee put out a report and they were calling on the TSA to do enhanced background checks, beef up the screening at airport workers; there are 900,000 airport workers at 450 U.S. passenger service airports and they, in some cases, don't receive the same screening passengers do. Just last year, Congress passed a bill to enhance the screening and the access controls for these employees. It didn't pass the Senate. I think that will be the question that goes to Congress and reviving Congress again next week. It's a big question.
[Paul:] So, Rick, with that said, what vulnerabilities did this highlight, do you think? Not just, is it the airport, the airline? I mean, who are they really going to be looking more closely at here?
[Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona Cnn Military Analyst:] Well, every airport is different so, they're going to have to come up with specific guidelines for each airport, and the problem is, once somebody does this, he puts a lot of people at risk. One guy gets in one airplane and he takes off in a crowded metropolitan area and look what happens. Not only does it tie up the air traffic system, but no one knew what his intentions were. He could have easily turned north and gone through downtown Seattle. He could have caused countless deaths on the ground. This is a real vulnerability that they have to address. It's not, they say this is one guy, one plane, but the potential damage he could cause needs to be addressed.
[Blackwell:] Let's go to some of the particulars about this situation now. Earlier the sheriff there in Pearce County referred to him as a mechanic, that's the job title that we were learning in the early moments after the breaking news. We now know that he was a ground service agent. First to you, Mary, most people know what a mechanic is. Ground service agent, what would that description have consisted of and would he typically have access to the cockpit to pull something like this off?
[Schiavo:] No, to have access to the cockpit and taxi an aircraft, ordinarily you're a mechanic and you to have to specific authority. You have to have taxi authority. You actually have to be trained in the aircraft and have taxi authority. You have to know the airport traffic patterns because lots of collisions happen right on the ground in the taxiways. I have worked air crashes where planes have crashed into each other while they're being taxied around. A couple years ago a mechanic taxied one off accidentally off a taxiway in Florida. So, it's very important. So, that's who is allowed to taxi an aircraft at the airports to and from maintenance and the ground service workers usually not an AMP mechanic which also means doesn't have a licensing and background check that an AMP mechanic would have.
[Paul:] So, Rick, when we talk about the military jets from Portland that followed this plane and we need to point out again these military jets as is being reported had nothing to do with this crash in terms of the consequences of what we're seeing, but you brought up a very good point about intention. Help us understand what those military jets, how they may have been communicating and what may they have been hearing about as they try to follow this guy not having any idea of what his intentions are.
[Francona:] Yes, you know, they were scrambled out of Portland; it's about 100 miles away. They were going supersonic so they could close that distance in about nine minutes. So, they were on the scene almost immediately and they took up positions behind and above this aircraft and then they made visual contact with the aircraft but they were trying to establish voice contact, which I don't think they ever did. Of course, they're getting information not only from Seattle air traffic control and also from the Western Air Defense Sector which just happens to be located at that Air Force base in Seattle. They were getting a lot of information. You have to realize what these young pilots are facing because they don't know what this guy's intentions are. Is he going to fly this into a city and fly it into a school or residential area? So, they go up there and they don't know what they're going to find. They're the first responders. They have to go up and assess the situation. Fortunately, there was only one death and that was the person who stole the aircraft. It could have gotten much worse if he was headed towards downtown Seattle, they would have had to increase their activity level and at the end, we were not going to let that aircraft go into downtown Seattle.
[Blackwell:] And of course that begs the question, at what point what was the protocol to make the decision to shoot down a plane. Colonel Francona, Mary Schiavo stay with us. We'll have more questions including that one in just a few moments. But, first, one year since white nationalists and counter protesters faced off on the streets of Charlottesville. Now they plan to do it again, this time in the nation's capital. Why they have not learned anything about race and hatred on this one year anniversary.
[Paul:] Also a bank employee says his boss wanted a job in the White House and willing to approve a massive loan to Paul Manafort in order to get it. The latest as week two of the Paul Manafort trial wraps up.