Dori: I’m surprised at the emotional impact the Sea-Tac plane theft had on me

I’m not supposed to be here today, but I’m going to need your help working through whatever it is I’m going through today. The Sea-Tac plane theft had such an emotional impact on me. I have never in my life wrestled with how to present something on air more than this story.

On Saturday I was at a hotel in Portland for my daughter’s tennis tournament when the 11 minutes of conversation between the guy who stole the plane and Air Traffic Control came on the news. I was sitting in that hotel room sobbing. I was supposed to be off today, but I had to work this through with our listeners.

I was trying to think how to present the Sea-Tac plane theft on the air, and while talking to one of my best friends about it before the show, I started to cry. I don’t understand this impact. I have never had a suicidal thought in my life and have thankfully never been touched by suicide. But there are thousands of people who decide to take their own lives, we just don’t have audio of their last 15 minutes.

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Every moment in the audio feels like a metaphor for all of our lives. Here is a guy who, for whatever reason, snapped. He has decided he’s going to kill himself, and he wants to touch the face of God first. But just as life goes by faster than we want, his plane ride is faster than he thought, and all too soon it’s all over.

I think he started thinking he wouldn’t kill himself because he mentioned the part about going to jail for life. The air traffic controller is incredible throughout the entire ordeal. He’s that person who tries to guide a suicidal person through the dark phase. People who are suicidal need that person who can metaphorically guide them to a safe landing, and it just didn’t happen for this man.

“I think I’m gonna do a barrel roll, and if that goes good, I’m just gonna nose down and call it a night.” I don’t want to glorify what this guy did, but what a line there. He wanted one last thrill before ending his life.

“Man, the sights went by so fast. I was thinking, like, I’m gonna have this moment of serenity and gonna be able to take in all the sights.” That’s the one that just got me. He thought he was going to go up, touch the face of God, and then end it, but it went by too fast.

I want to find out if anybody else had the same reaction that I did. Or, were you furious at the security breach and the people’s lives in danger? There are a lot of people who think this guy is nothing but an idiot, and rightfully so. There were thousands of people at the Pearl Jam concert at Safeco Field who were getting messages that a plane was stolen and were terrified that the plane was going to crash into the stadium, whether deliberately or accidentally.

Let me know how the Sea-Tac plane theft affected you. Text 98973, leave a comment here or email the show.

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