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Comment by JanSolo | Hacker News Reader

Listen to the recording of ATC personnel talking to the rogue pilot. He's just a normal guy with a few screws loose. I think they correctly assessed this man to be non-threatening to ground targets. Now, if the guy was non-responsive or erratic or started making threats, I do expect that the F15s might have been used.

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The recordings are surreal. He was talking about how beautiful Mount Rainer was and how he was going to check out the Olympics. He even asked for the coordinates to that Orca pod up here that's been in the news lately. I immediately got the sense he wasn't a threat, at least not intentionally - just a guy a bit lost. (Yes obviously I know he was still a major threat regardless of if he meant to do any harm.)

Very much surreal. He seemed very content considering his dire circumstances. Not to take away from the severity of his actions, but the fact that he completed what looked like a barrel roll w/o seemingly any prior flight experience is interesting to say the least.

Sounds like someone who had been contemplating suicide for a long time and was finally getting his wish. I've never felt that way myself but I can definitely see how it could be a huge relief.

Do you trust your hijackers to announce their intention to run into a building? In fact if a 9/11 ever happens again, the hijackers will have a pretty hard job convincing the passengers this is not a suicide mission and they shouldn't rebel. I always thought that is what prevented another 9/11, not confiscating baby milk at airport security checks.

Listen to the ATC recording. It is obvious the guy was not an (intentional) threat and was apparently not near populated areas.

I actually found the ATC recording to be quite moving and very sad. It's frustrating to read comments here assuming he was not shot down because everyone involved was just gullible.

People entrusted to make good decisions did just that.

For what it's worth, I've been through airport security with bottled breast milk a few times and they have never confiscated it, they just run it through the mass spectrometer.

The calmness of ATC never fails to amaze me. Pilots too.

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