The black box recovered from a stolen Seattle plane could help US investigators piece together how a troubled airport worker was able to take off and do acrobatic tricks without a pilot's licence.
There has been some suggestions the man, identified by relatives as 29-year-old Richard Russell, could have picked up basic flying skills via video games or flight simulators.
As he flew the stolen 76-seat passenger plane, Mr Russell was asked by an air traffic controller whether he was comfortable flying the plane around.
"Right now he is just flying around and he just needs some help controlling his aircraft," the air traffic controller is heard saying to Mr Russell.
Mr Russell responds: "Nah, I mean I don't need that much help, I've played some video games before."
A Horizon Air Bombardier Q400 - like the one stolen -taxis toward the runway at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Source: EPA
Horizon Air chief executive Gary Beck said at a news conference it was not clear how he was able to take off and fly as he did.
"There were some maneuvers that were done that were incredible maneuvers with the aircraft," Beck said. "Commercial aircraft are complex machines. They're not as easy to fly as, say, a Cessna 150, so I don't know how he achieved the experience that he did," Beck said.
Aviation expert Ryan Barclay, founder and executive of Fly Away Simulation said on Sunday it was possible video games or flight simulators could prepare someone to operate an airplane.
“Yes, I believe that a civilian who has a thorough experience of flight simulation could indeed start, taxi and take off an aircraft with no real world pilot experience,” Mr Barclay told the New York Times.
Flight Data Recorder Found
Astonishing video showed the Horizon Air Q400, a turboprop plane doing large loops and other dangerous manoeuvres as the sun set on Puget Sound.
Two F-15C aircraft were scrambled from Portland and pursued the plane but authorities say they didn't fire on it before it crashed on tiny Ketron Island.
After falling through several 30-meter lines of trees, the Bombardier Q400 broke up into pieces small enough to pick up by hand, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Western Pacific Region chief Debra Eckrote told CNN.
"You couldn't even tell it was a plane except for some of the bigger sections, like the wing section," Eckrote said. "Even the small sections, most of it doesn't resemble a plane."
Ekrote said that the flight data recorder - commonly known as the airplane's "black box" - was burned but was otherwise intact.
The The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will send the recorder to Washington DC. to analyze the data for clues next week.
'Stunned and Heartbroken'
"It may seem difficult for those watching at home to believe, but Beebo was a warm, compassionate man," the Russell family said in a statement read out by a family friend.
We are "stunned and heartbroken" by the incident, the statement read.
"He was a faithful husband, a loving son and a good friend."
Mike Mathews and friends of Richard Russell talk to the media. Source: AAP
Recent social media posts often showed him on adventures with his wife, who he said he met in Oregon in 2010.
"We were married one year later, and one month after that we opened a bakery which we successfully ran for 3 years," he wrote on his website. "We consider ourselves bakery connoisseurs and have to try a new one every place we go."
The couple later moved to Washington state, where he got a job with Horizon. His wife could not immediately be reached for comment.
In a video posted on YouTube last December, Russell shows luggage coming off and being loaded onto aircraft, and describes what the life of a ground service agent can entail.
"That means I lift a lot of bags, like a lot of bags, so many bags," he says, adding, "it allows me to do some pretty cool things, too."
There was no mention in the social media posts of studying to become a pilot but in some posts he spoke of his Christian religious faith and the possibility of joining the military.
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