Preserve, Protect, & Defend (user search)

Quote from: brucejoel99 on May 13, 2021, 03:18:28 PM

Captain Jonah Noland

Tuesday, January 24th, 2023:

9:23pm, Reagan National Airport

Alaska SkyWest E75 in Fresno - RickyCourtney [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 file], via Wikimedia Commons

Alaska Airlines Flight 1002 provided nonstop service from D.C. to San Francisco. On January 24th, 2023, Captain Jonah Noland was set to pilot the Boeing 737, carrying on board its full capacity: Captain Noland, First Officer Garret Manns, their 4 flight attendants, & 189 passengers. Just 35 years old at the time of the flight, Captain Noland - originally from Oklahoma City - began training to become a commercial pilot in 2009, joined Alaska Airlines after receiving his commercial pilot's license in 2011, & had been promoted to captain of Boeing 737-800 airliners in 2018. Having logged more than 13,500 hours of flight time over his career, this regular night flight was surely primed to be just like every other flight that Noland had flown before it. There was just one problem: Noland wasn't planning on this flight turning out like the others.

Noland had spent the day leading up to the flight in his hotel room, simply having felt like he had nothing to do after going everywhere, seen everything, & done everything that D.C. has to offer over the years. After waking up & realizing that he was gonna be bored out of his mind with nothing to do all day before he had to head over to the airport, he decided to turn on the TV & switch through the channels 'til he came across his favorite network: OANN. Although his local cable package up in Anchorage didn't offer OANN, he'd loved the network - &, in particular, the commentary which they had to offer - ever since he found the channel on some hotel-room TV on one of his stopovers a few years back. His watching it was actually a bid weird at first: he'd never even been all that political before he discovered the network (once upon a time, he'd even been an Obama voter, albeit a pretty unengaged one), but everything which the personalities on the network had to say just made perfect sense to him. After just a few months of tuning in every now & then here & there, he truly believed that former President Trump had been the victim of deep-state scheming & persecution, & that everything that had ever been thrown his way was a hoax, most especially the "lie" - as Noland saw it - that former President Trump had lost the 2020 election. Noland just didn't understand how that could happen, given what he saw as the former President's greatness; the only way that such a "steal" could possibly be happening was with "Democrat election fraud" & "widespread voter fraud."

His conviction of this reality deepened to the extent that he'd even participated in the storming of the Capitol Building 2 years prior while in town on yet another stopover, intent on aiding former President Trump in his attempt to overturn his defeat by stopping the joint session of Congress from formalizing President Biden's victory. He was thankful everyday thereafter that the FBI never came knocking on his door; he'd never publicly posted or even so much as talked about his involvement on January 6th, 2021, so he seemingly ended up being just another face lost amongst the sea of faces in the background of blurry, shaky-cam phone footage of that day. But in the 2 years since, he'd never been able to get over the loss that he & his fellow insurrectionists felt that they had experienced on that day, a loss which he continued to be reminded of as he watched OANN commentating on how President Biden's State of the Union address later that night would consist of nothing more than the President pushing "the radical Democrats' socialist agenda that was solely bent on destroying America." Watching the broadcast, Noland couldn't take it anymore, so angered by a President & Democrats he saw as destroying the country, & even moreso by the fact that he felt that he couldn't do anything about it... or could he?

"No, no. It's a stupid idea," he thought to himself, shaking his head. He'd only thought about it before in the sense of fantasizing about it. He could never possibly go through with it. But why couldn't he? In the near blink of an eye, he'd be able to get the ultimate payback for the steal which he felt had been perpetrated upon America. Sure, he'd be taking down those he considered to be true patriots like him, such as Senator Hawley & Representatives Greene, Boebert, & Cawthorn, if he did so, but wouldn't it be worth it for what he felt was their shared cause? After all, sacrifice - even, or rather, especially a significant amount of it - is sometimes required to achieve that which is worth doing: that which is ultimately the right thing to do, at least as Noland saw it. And Noland understood this too, in that he'd surely go down as a monster if he successfully managed to do what he was considering doing, but maybe he'd go down as a martyr among those who were "true patriots" like him. And maybe - just maybe - even former President Trump would be proud of what his followers were willing to do in his name, even if he surely wouldn't be able to say so publicly. And what of his plane's passengers? Noland didn't think much of them. A few less San Franciscans would probably be nothing but good for America, he thought.

Besides, the President's State of the Union address happening right as he'd be in the air overhead provided him with just too good of an opportunity to pass up. So, with that, he made his decision: later that night, shortly after take-off, he'd take full control of the plane & turn it into a large guided missile, loaded with 6,400 gallons of jet fuel & aimed directly at the packed House chamber in the Capitol. By 9:23pm on the night of January 24th, shortly after the President had just begun delivering his speech, with just a minute left to go before take-off, Captain Noland was ready to execute on his plan. He'd already made sure that the cockpit door was locked shortly before taxiing away from the gate, & now all that there was left to do was take care of was his co-pilot. That wouldn't be too difficult for Noland, thanks to the post-9/11 Arming Pilots Against Terrorism Act. Courtesy of the federal government themselves, Noland was authorized to carry on-board, & just a short moment after they were in the air, First Officer Manns didn't even see the shot coming. The sound of the gunshot triggered panic in the passengers behind him, which only intensified once they realized that they were approaching the Capital & losing altitude. One of the flight attendants kept knocking on the door, trying to figure out what was going on & asking the pilots if they were okay, completely unware of what'd just transpired on the other side. Captain Noland didn't care. He was a man on a mission - the mission of his life - & he was intent on seeing his mission through to its end.

Little nitpick, but that’s a picture of a Embraer 175, which doesn’t have the range capabilities to fly from DCA to PDX. it would be a 737-900, or 737-800, and possibly an a321neo on that route for Alaska.
great timeline btw
I very much hope this never happens

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