本文选自NBC News，原文链接如下Questions raised over how airline employee was able to steal and crash plane。原文较长，一千五百多单词，大家悠着点看哦。
“The individual was fully credentialed（授以证书的，说明此职员有合法进入飞机的资质）. He had access to that area legitimately,” an official said.
An airline employee stole a plane in Washington state and crashed（坠毁） in Puget Sound after being chased（追逐） by F-15 fighter jets late Friday, but questions linger（留存） as to how he was able to do it and what security measures are in place to respond to these types of situations.
The employee of Horizon Air, a subsidiary（子公司） of Alaska Airlines, took off from the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport at around 7:30 p.m. PT (10:30 p.m. ET) on Friday and crashed about an hour later, officials said. Sources identified the employee as Richard Russell and officials on Saturday expressed condolences to（表达哀悼） his family and loved ones.
The employee had worked for Horizon Air for more than three years, and had undergone（经历） multiple criminal background checks（多次刑事调查）, said Brad Tilden, the CEO of Alaska Air Group, in a Saturday press conference. Employees face background checks that go back 10 years, which they are required to renew every two years. Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air said they were not aware of anything popping up（出现，未见异常状况） during this employee's background checks.
The Transportation Security Administration started running “real-time, recurring（复发的，再次的） background checks for aviation（航空） workers, including airline workers” after an Atlanta baggage handler（处理者） was discovered smuggling（走私） weapons in 2015. The airport also runs a check on individuals who have access to the runways（跑道） and airplanes.
"The individual was fully credentialed. He had access to that area legitimately,” said Mike Ehl, director of operations at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. “It’s inside the security fence so no security violations were committed."
Aviation security expert Jeff Price said that it is routine for ramp（活动梯） workers to have access to aircraft and that access is "part of their job." But he believes the worker who stole the plane must have had some level of training.
"It's a complex aircraft, it's a multi-engine aircraft, it's turboprop（涡轮螺旋桨发动机） — this is not something you just jump in and figure out on the job," Price, a professor of aviation management at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
"And the maneuver（机动，移动，操纵杆） that he pulled off（脱去，胜利完成） — you really can’t just loop a plane and expect it to just work,” he said. "There’s some level of either flight experience of flight training there somewhere."
When the airport realized that the stolen plane was in the air, they ordered a ground stop and cleared（清空） the airspace, an order that ended at 8:40 p.m. local time, Ehl said Saturday. Due to the incident, 75 planes were delayed, nine flights were diverted（转移） and five were cancelled.
After the plane was stolen, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, also known as NORAD, scrambled（紧急起飞了两架F-15战机） two F-15 fighter jets. As of（截止） Saturday afternoon, officials said they do not believe that the jets were involved in the crash.
The Federal Aviation Administration reported that the airline employee had stolen a Bombardier Q-400 aircraft（庞巴迪冲-400飞机） from the airport and asked the Department of Defense for assistance. NORAD then sent the jets from Portland to intercept（中途拦截） the stolen plane.
“The fighters were directed to fly supersonic（超音速） to expedite（加快进展，迅速完成） the intercept,” NORAD said in a statement. “The stolen aircraft initially tracked（朝...行进） south from Seattle-Tacoma. NORAD fighters were working to redirect the aircraft out over the Pacific Ocean when it crashed on the Southern tip of Ketron Island in the Southern end of Puget Sound. NORAD fighters did not fire upon the aircraft.”
NORAD said in a statement that they were prepared for these types of situations due to Operation NOBLE EAGLE (ONE). According to the Pentagon, ONE “is a direct response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon. It funds the continuing efforts to defend the United States from airborne attacks（空袭）, maintain air sovereignty, and defend critical U.S. facilities from a potentially hostile（敌对的威胁） threat.”
The United States budgeted（把...编入预算） $110 million in fiscal year（财年） 2017 for ONE, much of it going to the Army, though the Air Force controlled a sizable chunk*（庞大的部分） of the budget — approximately $21.5 million — as well.
The program is supported by hundreds of national guardsmen（州辖预备役部队成员） and dozens of active-duty（现役） and reserve（预备役） service members, which is the primary driver of cost. ONE also includes a large and maintained investment in air defense systems “to protect critical national assets, and to respond to National Special Security Events on a nation-wide basis,” according to a 2017 Pentagon report.
It appears that is one thing this unofficial pilot（非官方的飞行员） may have been concerned about.
According to audio recording captured（抓住，捕捉） between the pilot and the air traffic controller as the airline employee flew over Puget Sound, the pilot said that he was wary of（堤防） returning to land because “they’ve probably got anti-aircraft（反飞机系统）.”
The air traffic controller seemed to laugh at that suggestion and said that was not the case.
The pilot said that he was wary of returning to land because “they’ve probably got anti-aircraft.”
In the end, however, the biggest issue that this pilot seemed to face is how quickly he burned through fuel（燃料耗尽）. “I’m down to 2,100 [pounds of fuel],” he said. “I started at like 30-something.”
It appeared to come as a surprise to the former airline employee, who said he didn’t know how much fuel tended to burn on takeoff（起飞需要多少燃料）.
"It's burned quite a bit faster than I expected," he said.
The airline employee did not have a pilot's license, according to Gary Beck, the president and CEO of Horizon Air. Beck said they were investigating how the airline employee had learned to fly the plane.
Despite the security measures and the complexity of the airplane, the unnamed pilot still was able to steal an aircraft and take it on a joyride（兜风，驾车游玩） before his crash. It appears he had no greater reason than an unknown breaking point（临界点）, according to the radio chatter with air traffic control.
"I've got a lot of people that care about me. It’s going to disappoint them to hear that I did this,” the man told air traffic controllers as he was flying the plane. “I would like to apologize to each and everyone one of them. Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose（几颗螺丝松了，形容遇到困境）, I guess — never really knew it until now."
Price, the aviation security expert, said a worker stealing a plane is not something that aviation security measures are designed to address（解决）. Those ramp workers who have flight training typically want to become pilots someday, and stealing a plane would immediately end that career, he said.
“This is something that aviation security is not designed to prevent, it’s not designed to try and defend against, because it is such an anomaly（异常现象） that something like this occurs,” he said.
"We'll talk about what if a pilot does something, what if somebody on board（在飞机上） were to do something, a flight attendant — that’s all covered within the airline security regulations and there’s procedures in place（在那里，有相关规定）,” Price said.
"But for a procedure like this, the ramp workers, the mechanics（机械工）, they have unfettered（无约束的） access to the plane," he said. "And it’s kind of a little bit of a leap to think, oh, what if one of them has some flight training and they’re going to jump in and just take off."
Price said that there should be an analysis to take a look at airlines’ workplace violence and mental instability indicator policies, like whether there are numbers other employees can call to report co-workers who may need help.
As more becomes known about the worker who stole the plane, the incident could provide valuable clues（线索） to the aviation security industry about what "pre-incident indicators（事前因素）" to look for, he said.
"There might need to be a procedure in place where if you’re not a pilot or a flight attendant（乘务员）, you’re not allowed on the plane unless there is someone there that is responsible for the aircraft," he said.
"But that’s going to have to be looked at and the operational impact, he said. “This just might be a complete, total anomaly."
