Richard Russell: What Happened?

If you’ve followed the sad story of Richard Russell, you have to be scratching your head and wondering what happened.

Was this a suicide mission of a man who kept it all inside?

Was Russell on a joy ride and didn’t think of the consequences? Or was it something else?

When you listen to him speak to air traffic control, you get moments where he sounds like he understands the gravity of the situation (albeit briefly)–moments of reality–paired up with moments where you wonder if he is delusional–where he has an altered sense of reality (like he is in a dream playing video games). In the delusional state, he is happy, light-hearted and doesn’t seem to grasp the gravity of it all — like when he says, ““I think I’m going to try to do a barrel roll, and if that goes good I’ll go nose down and call it a night.”

You could take that last statement as he knew what he doing.  OR, you could also argue this was a man who for a moment thought he was playing a video game and was going to “call it a night”.

You know how you have dream states where things from the real world are impacting you, but you aren’t totally grasping things?  That’s the feelings I get when I listen to Russell. Something feels off.  He doesn’t sound grounded to me.

I don’t believe this was a suicide and I don’t believe Russell went on a joy ride for the sake of a joy ride. And his friends seem to support this theory. Russell wasn’t a big bravado jerk who had to prove his worth, or who would want to go out with a big bang, if you will.

His friends and co-workers say he was a responsible, kind and compassionate man. None of his friends think this situation is inline with Russell’s character. On the contrary, they are very surprised and shocked.

So many things could have caused this and I’m sure investigators will explore all of them from drugs (prescription or illicit), late-age onset mental illness, and other things that can set off delusional behavior.  It will be interesting to see what they uncover.  I hope for the family they get some answers.

What do you think happened here?