Pearl - March 09, 2026


Rest In Peace Sky King


Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

154.08652

Word count

1,578

Sentence count

107

Harmful content

Toxicity

13

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The pilot of an Alaska Airlines Q400 hijack attempt to land at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport calls in to say that his plane is stuck in the middle of the runway and he needs help to get it off the ground. Captain Bill and the rest of the flight crew are on the ground waiting for a tow truck to get the plane onto the tarmac. Meanwhile, the hijacker is on the other side of the airport waiting for help.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 oh my i get kind of emotional like watching this because it's just like i mean he just
00:00:04.160 did something that most pilots can't do like that's an insane trick right why why was he doing
00:00:10.000 the bags seattle grounds uh horizon guy um about to take off it's gonna be crazy
00:00:20.560 aircraft on charlie uh lining up runway one six center say your call sign the dash
00:00:25.520 The Dash 8 on Runway 1-6 Center, say your call sign.
00:00:27.520 The Dash 8 on Runway 1-6 Center, say your call sign.
00:00:30.520 Who's the Dash 8 holding on Runway 1-6 Center?
00:00:33.520 The guy on Alaska 322.
00:00:36.520 That aircraft was passed behind on the horizon when he was taking off roll.
00:00:40.520 I don't know what he was doing.
00:00:41.520 Who's the aircraft on Runway 1-6 Center?
00:00:44.520 Wheels are smoking left and right as they are right now as he's rolling down the runway.
00:00:49.520 Alright, I'm not even talking to him.
00:00:51.520 He came flying out of the cargo area in front of Delta.
00:00:56.680 Came out of cargo area once.
00:00:58.560 It's just a single pilot.
00:01:01.560 Yeah, Tower, we can verify that, too.
00:01:03.480 He came flying out of nowhere.
00:01:04.600 We thought this is somebody calling him in front of us, but he came flying in.
00:01:09.280 All right, thank you.
00:01:10.540 Tower, you need to call and scramble now.
00:01:13.420 Now we are.
00:01:16.380 Hey, Roger, you on?
00:01:18.060 See you on the ground, I mean.
00:01:19.380 Who is transmitting on the ramp?
00:01:21.280 Verizon guy, 449 Quebec X-Ray.
00:01:23.640 Yeah, 449.
00:01:24.860 What can I do for you?
00:01:26.260 Hey, I found myself in a bit of a predicament.
00:01:29.440 I'm in the air right now and just kind of soaring around.
00:01:33.880 449, are you not supposed to be on that aircraft?
00:01:36.460 Yeah, I did kind of a bad thing, kind of a selfish thing.
00:01:41.920 But it's all good.
00:01:43.160 I'm going to go check out Rainier.
00:01:45.580 Yeah, 449, so you hijacked the plane is what you're saying?
00:01:49.000 Yeah, I'm afraid I did. 0.88
00:01:56.100 What the hell? 1.00
00:01:58.080 Holy shit. 1.00
00:01:59.380 Oh, my God. 1.00
00:02:00.280 What the fuck in Alaska Airlines Q400? 1.00
00:02:02.700 What the fuck is he doing over here? 0.99
00:02:06.640 Any idea if a Dash 8 Q400 can do a barrel roll? 0.99
00:02:12.700 Just flying the plane around.
00:02:14.580 Do you seem comfortable with that?
00:02:16.080 Oh, hell yeah, it's a blast, man. I've played video games before, so I, uh, you know, I know what I'm doing a little bit.
00:02:25.160 Nah, everything's peachy. Peachy clean. Just did a little circle around right here. It's beautiful.
00:02:33.080 I think I got some gaps to go check out, uh, the Olympics. And, uh, yeah.
00:02:39.520 well if you can see the olympics the weather is good i can see the olympics from my window
00:02:45.280 and it looks pretty good over there all right i just i hit some uh felt like turbulent around
00:02:51.760 right here but there's no clouds hardly oh that's just the uh the wind blowing over all the bumpy
00:02:57.840 surfaces there oh copy that man have you been to the olympics you guys are gorgeous
00:03:09.520 Yeah, I have been out there. It's always a nice drive.
00:03:18.520 This is probably like jail time for life, huh? I would hope it is for a guy like me.
00:03:25.520 Damn it, Andrew. People's lives are at stake here. 0.99
00:03:30.520 Now, Rich, don't say stuff like that.
00:03:32.520 like that? No, I don't want to hear you. I just want you to whisper sweet nothing. This is my ear.
00:03:40.840 Hey Rich, this is Captain Bill here. We're still listening. My airplane's doing just fine. How's
00:03:46.440 yours? I got a lot of people that care about me and it's going to disappoint them to hear that I
00:03:56.720 did this. Um, I would like to apologize to each and every one of them. Um, just a broken
00:04:05.700 guy. Got a few screws loose, I guess. Never really knew it until now. Hey, pilot guy,
00:04:14.800 can this thing do a, uh, a back flip, you think? Well, I'd try to figure out how to
00:04:19.940 get the autopilot first. If you were to do it, how would you do it?
00:04:26.720 Hey, you think if I land it successfully, Alaska will give me a job as a pilot?
00:04:33.480 You know, I think they will give you a job of doing anything if you could pull this off.
00:04:37.380 Yeah, right.
00:04:39.820 I'm going to land it.
00:04:41.640 Like, in a safe kind of manner.
00:04:45.840 I think I'm going to try to do a barrel roll.
00:04:49.440 And if that goes good, I'm just going to nose down and call the night.
00:04:56.720 Let's pick a rock for one.
00:05:25.920 And the TOI-1 just completed a barrel roll.
00:05:30.440 Rock-1-2, he did a barrel roll.
00:05:33.100 A barrel, he cleared the surface of the water by approximately 10 feet.
00:05:37.880 But Rock-2, the Rock-1, the TOI-1 did a barrel roll and just barely missed hitting the water.
00:05:44.480 All right, Rich, this is Captain Bill.
00:05:46.520 Congratulations.
00:05:47.240 He did that.
00:05:48.320 Now let's try to plane that airplane safely and not hurt anybody on the ground.
00:05:54.300 All right.
00:05:55.320 I was kind of hoping that was going to be it, you know?
00:06:02.320 For long, I feel like one of my interests is going out or something.
00:06:25.320 i've watched this like 20 times
00:06:34.100 like how does it got oh my god like oh i get kind of emotional like watching this because it's just
00:06:44.800 like I mean he just did something that most pilots can't do like that's an insane trick right why why
00:06:57.180 was he doing the bags okay I'm gonna bring up I don't know I want Doug MPA's take because I just 0.81
00:07:03.240 I found out about this yesterday and I'm like what the fuck we could do a call-in show like
00:07:10.060 why do you think he did it like why didn't let me read the actually let me read the comments 0.90
00:07:13.820 this is on x someone posted this on x on this day in 2018 28 year old richard russell forever
00:07:22.340 known as sky king borrowed an airplane from the seattle tacoma airport for a joyride for over an
00:07:27.780 hour before crashing onto a remote island he did a pretty epic barrel roll you wonder what it felt
00:07:32.440 like in the sunset to pull back on that stick among the clouds watching their horizon slip by
00:07:37.880 as the plane came over seeing the water rushing towards him doubtful of whether or not he was
00:07:41.640 going to make it. He only made that roll by a few degrees. It must have been the most exhilarating
00:07:46.980 moment of his whole life. That altitude would have felt like kissing the water. It must have felt like
00:07:51.920 destiny, the plane practically skimming the water, surrounded by the hills of the nearby islands,
00:07:56.860 slingshotting back out that right bank he made afterwards and all the speed he built from coming
00:08:02.040 down. He clearly didn't expect to live. I was kind of hoping it would be over, you know. It must have
00:08:07.100 felt like a rebirth, a total willingness to die, complete commitment to the cause I'm expecting to
00:08:11.840 avoid the water, and then incomprehensible exhilaration. Then only a few moments later,
00:08:16.820 he crashes into an empty island, going out in the high note of his existence. In the moment of the
00:08:21.900 image that it's used as a symbol, he is pulling back hard through a bank after that roll. I'm
00:08:28.480 certain he has the biggest smile on his face, and he felt totally free. Nobody can copycat what he
00:08:33.320 did, because he did it on total faith with no expectation of outcome. Rich was just a man
00:08:38.800 trying to live. Others would just be men trying to be rich. Richard Sky King Russell is the spirit
00:08:44.600 of every person alive today in the West who has that feeling, which is in more or less of us,
00:08:48.960 that feeling of hopelessness and lack of purpose, where one has no choice but to serve the machine
00:08:54.060 and be extracted for their worth before they are discarded, with the only thing to show for their
00:08:59.680 toils the benefit of others' bank accounts. No personal achievements, no fulfillments, no feeling
00:09:04.840 of being alive. But he made it. He got out. In the final act of a glorious rebellion, he slipped
00:09:09.740 that surely the bonds of this earth we live on and took himself for the greatest freedom man
00:09:14.700 has ever known. We're all Richard. We all suffer under the crushing weight of the 21st century life
00:09:18.920 that we created. In short, our bodies last longer, but we never live. He lived, if only for a brief,
00:09:24.660 beautiful moment. He lived truly as a free man, living man's oldest dream, completely free.
00:09:29.680 he soared through the skies and put on his hand and touched the face of God.
00:09:34.160 He is without question one of the greatest heroes to ever live,
00:09:37.100 and his final act of rebellion is, to me, unironically,
00:09:39.780 one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.
00:09:44.380 Let's see what else.
00:09:45.700 Fly high, brother.
00:09:46.620 That airframe should be completely incapable of the aerobatics that he pulled. 0.99
00:09:51.100 Dude is a fucking legend. 0.97
00:09:52.380 Sad story, but I don't blame him for ditching him there. 1.00
00:09:55.160 That would have been an ungodly prison sentence.
00:09:57.180 I'm curious if you guys have thoughts on how long you think his prison sentence would have been.
00:10:01.320 I don't know why.
00:10:02.840 Maybe it's the woman in me, but I feel as though it wouldn't have been life. 0.63
00:10:10.640 I just don't know how anybody could hear that and not have sympathy for the guy.