The real Beebo Russell was nudist finder a man in despair who spent his final minutes scared, lightheaded, covered in his own sick, seeking a moment of Zen from thousands of feet in the air that never arrived. He’d set in motion a criminal plot he couldn’t walk back, and ultimately resolved to take his own life rather than return safely to the ground.

The internet Beebo Russell is an archetype: a modern-day Icarus whose dramatic dying act has become a blank slate for others to project meaning upon that informs their own lives. They see a working man, broken down by indifferent bosses – a human cog in the airport machinery who suddenly revolted, stole an airplane, buzzed a volcano, sassed air-traffic controllers, and performed air-show stunts in a final dogged display of the human spirit. As one member of the Sky King community puts it, “His story’s true Americana.”

The flesh-and-blood Russell would almost certainly have gotten a kick out of his internet alter ego, seeing his exploits become fodder for the same kind of dank expressions of edgy and viral humor he’d collected on Pinterest, and hoped to create himself. Meme World here I come!”

In the end, perhaps, it’s a meme that offers some sense of closure for Russell’s legacy. On a Pinterest board called “Boom,” he’d once pinned a “demotivational” poster from Despair. It features a photo of a snowboarder careening off a towering, rocky cliff and bold capital letters that spell “Regret.”

“It hurts to admit when you make mistakes,” the smaller text reads. “But when they’re big enough, the pain only lasts a second.”

Suicide is preventable. If you or someone you know is in crisis, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK.

Russell’s employee badge gave him access to both the tug and the remote cargo area. There was no lock on the door of the airplane. The cockpit was not secured. Continue reading “His head is thrown back with a coy expression, as if the prompt had been “Give me a sexy walrus”