The Day a Plane Flew Solo!

This story is about a special airplane called a Bombardier Q400. It's a super-fast plane that can carry lots of people! This one was flying for Horizon Air. It's about as long as a school bus and has two big propellers that spin like giant pinwheels. On a sunny day, this big bird took off on its own, which is very unusual!

On August 10, 2018, something unexpected happened at an airport in Seattle. A man who worked on the ground, not a pilot, got into the cockpit. He had never flown a plane before! But he started the engines and, whoosh, the plane took off into the sky. It was like a giant toy airplane flying on its own!

When the airplane controllers saw the plane flying without a pilot, they were very surprised! They sent two super-fast fighter jets, like speedy police cars of the sky, to follow it. The airplane flew around for a while, doing cool loops and turns, almost like it was dancing in the air. It was a very strange and exciting sight!

After flying for about an hour and 15 minutes, the airplane landed on a small island. Thankfully, there weren't many people on the island, so no one on the ground got hurt. The airplane was the only thing that crashed. It was a very sad ending to a very unusual flight.