Beck said the aerial maneuvers were "incredible" and that he "did not know how [Russell] achieved the experience that he did."[42] During his conversation with air traffic control, Russell said he "[knew] what [he was] doing a little bit" because he had experience playing video games.[2] After the incident, Joel Monteith, a pilot for SkyWest Airlines, relayed to an emergency dispatcher that in 2017, he saw Russell and another man "pointing and flipping switches" in the cockpit of a SkyWest aircraft parked at Sea–Tac Airport. Monteith stated the men told him they were training to use the aircraft's auxiliary power unit so they could tow it, but said it was "suspicious" that they left when he confronted them. Monteith also recalled that Russell had been in the cockpit of an Embraer 175 with him, and that Russell asked him about his "flows, which is the preflight preparation I do for takeoff."[43] Some co-workers said that Russell had probably trained himself to fly using amateur flight simulation software.[4]