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St. George (SGU) Airport: US Soldier steals Skywest Jet (CRJ200)

St. George (SGU) Airport: US Soldier steals Skywest Jet (CRJ200)

Old Jul 17, 2012, 1:41 pm
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St. George (SGU) Airport: US Soldier steals Skywest Jet (CRJ200)

KSL-5 Television:
Man who stole plane, committed suicide wanted in connection with murder
July 17th, 2012 @ 1:06pm


A short quote:
Just before 1 a.m. Tuesday, a security guard doing a routine check at the St. George Municipal Airport spotted a motorcycle parked next to the barbed wire gate that borders the airport property, Mortensen said. The engine was still warm.

He then noticed a rug thrown over the wire part of the fence as if someone had climbed over. Moments later, he heard a SkyWest CRJ200 aircraft start up.
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Old Jul 17, 2012, 1:47 pm
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This is already being discussed in a thread on the DL forum.
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Old Jul 17, 2012, 4:12 pm
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Pilot jumps fence, damages SkyWest Jet

http://abcnews.go.com/US/man-crashed...2#.UAXitpEgoa8

An airline captain who entered a small Utah airport early this morning and damaged a SkyWest Airlines jetliner, a terminal building and some parked vehicles had been sought by authorities in the death of his girlfriend.
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Old Jul 17, 2012, 4:38 pm
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A couple of things I noticed form the article:

They said it was unclear whether the jet got off the ground or not.

The photo appears to show the jet with its landing gear raised and on a dolly of some kind.

I would assume (although I'm not an engineer) that civilian jets have a WOW (weight on/off wheels) switch that prevents accidental raising of the gear when on the ground, among other things.

This would lead me to believe that either the aircraft DID leave the ground in some way, the Capt disabled the WOW switch and then raised the gear or they (the recovery crew) lifted the jet, raised the gear and put it on the dolly.

I'm not leading anywhere specific with this. Just some interesting observations.
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Old Jul 17, 2012, 5:59 pm
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According to the nightly news report, the jet was in a tight spot near a jetway (might have needed to be re-positioned with tug). In attempting to taxi away, one of the wings clipped the jetway then a corner of the terminal building, then the plane breached a chainlink fence and came to a halt when the nosegear collapsed. Not positioned for takeoff! No co-pilot, no ATC assistance, the pilot was unable to handle the aeroplane. Then he committed suicide.
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Old Jul 17, 2012, 8:04 pm
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Originally Posted by medic51vrf
A

I would assume (although I'm not an engineer) that civilian jets have a WOW (weight on/off wheels) switch that prevents accidental raising of the gear when on the ground, among other things.

This would lead me to believe that either the aircraft DID leave the ground in some way, the Capt disabled the WOW switch and then raised the gear or they (the recovery crew) lifted the jet, raised the gear and put it on the dolly.

I'm not leading anywhere specific with this. Just some interesting observations.
I don't have my Aircraft Flight Manual for the CRJ-200 right in front of me right now, but if I remember correctly, there is a "squat switch" on the right main landing gear, that when depressed disconnects the landing gear actuator circuit breaker preventing an inadvertent retraction on the ground, which can be very noisy and expensive. Plus, it's really, really hard to taxi with the wheels up.
There is no way to disable the squat switch without disassembly of the gear assembly. The guy tore the nose gear out from under the airplane when he hit a chain link fence.

He didn't have a co-pilot with him to read out the "How to fit a 70 foot airplane through a 60 foot space" checklist. And no, the upwardly bent wingtips on the new RJs is not from other people trying to do the same thing.
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Old Jul 17, 2012, 8:08 pm
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I'm always amazed that planes don't have more security on them. Isn't there something like a key or code to start a commercial aircraft? There was a show I believe on Discovery the followed people who repo private jets. It doesn't seem like they're very secure either. They apparently just hop in and are able to start them up and take off. I would think a 20-50 million dollar piece of equipment would have some high tech security on it.
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Old Jul 17, 2012, 8:14 pm
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This is already being discussed in a thread started earlier in the DL forum.
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Old Jul 18, 2012, 7:40 am
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Originally Posted by VelvetJones
I'm always amazed that planes don't have more security on them. Isn't there something like a key or code to start a commercial aircraft?
I don't know much, in fact hardly anything, about commercial aircraft but I can tell you that if the jet has a built in APU (such as a F/A-18 Hornet) even military jets can be started and flown by anyone that has the knowledge without any kind of key, code, or the like. Or at least that's the way it was in the 80's.
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Old Jul 19, 2012, 12:40 am
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There is already discussed the existing thread in DL Forum.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...t-airport.html

Mods, please locked the thread or move the thread in DL forum.
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