“Something Needs to Change”

Todd Bunker

On August 10, a Seattle-area airport worker stole a plane and crashed it, killing himself. Because his working conditions were so miserable, his former coworker says in an interview, the act wasn't a complete shock.

Getty Images


The US workplace produced another devastating act of worker violence on August 10, when Richard Russell stole a plane from his employer Horizon Air in Seattle and crashed it on August 10. He died in the crash.

While few answers about what led Russell to kill himself at work have emerged, Todd Bunker, a writer who worked briefly with Russell at Horizon, says the actions weren’t totally shocking given the nature of work at the SeaTac Airport.

Bunker has published two novels and recently wrote in Seattle’s alt-weekly the Stranger about his time working with Russell in 2016 in an article called “I Worked With Richard Russell at Horizon Air, and I Understand Why He Did What He Did.”

This article is for subscribers only. Please login or subscribe to access our full archives and beautiful print and digital magazine starting at just $3 a month.