U.S. airline worker steals plane, takes it for flight before crashing it

Federal authorities were searching on Saturday for what drove an airline worker to steal an empty airplane from Seattle’s airport and crashing it into a nearby sparsely populated island, sparking a security scare that saw U.S. fighter jets scrambled.

An Horizon Air ground service agent took the controls of a Bombardier Q400 turboprop airplane in a maintenance area at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport at about 8 p.m. local time Friday and took off, embarking on flight over Seattle before crashing about an one hour later on Ketron Island in Puget Sound, Horizon sister carrier Alaska Airline said online.