Hayman Vasher

"I am become Death."

Hayman Vasher was a homegrown terrorist and mass murderer who hacked into and then crashed a passenger jet in A Thousand Suns.

History
Vasher excelled in mathematics and also worked as an aerospace engineer for TRX Technologies and Aviation. He graduated from the Philadelphia University of Science and Engineering with high honors after his research allowed TRX to progress further with their work. However, despite his academic and professional success, he was a social outcast in his personal life and also upheld extreme anarchist views, although he was apparently pro-technology. Vasher greatly admired and made several posts about J. Robert Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist who was among those who created the atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project during World War II. He admired Oppenheimer specifically because of his progression from a socially-awkward scientist to a world-renowned man, a change that he desired to go through as well. In 2006, he dated a woman named Kristina Morrow, but the date didn't go well and she posted about it on Facebook, essentially humiliating him. As a result, Vasher quit his job and dropped out of society completely, much like Theodore Kaczynski. Wanting to create a deadly weapon of mass destruction like Oppenheimer did, he spent the following eight years developing a computerized system that would allow him to hack into and take control of passenger jets who were flying nearby his new residence in the Colorado wilderness. Once he finished development of the system, Vasher decided to test it on Trans Alliance Airlines Flight 420, which Kristina was flying on to go to a sorority reunion in Phoenix, Arizona. Three days prior to his hacking into the flight, he texts Kristina with a quote taken from Oppenheimer, "I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds."

In "A Thousand Suns", he manages to crash Trans Alliance Flight 420 near Durango, Colorado, killing all of the passengers and crew except for the co-pilot, First Officer Frank Canvers, who survived after the cockpit hit a set of power lines that subsequently softened the landing. Because of the suspicious circumstances of the crash, the BAU is called in to investigate the cause of the crash and create a profile around a potential offender. After a lengthy investigation, they deduce the exact cause of the crash. As they manage to identify Vasher as the unsub based on their profile and their assumption that he would've targeted someone aboard Trans Alliance Flight 420, he hacks into Inter Atlantic Flight 61. Prior to that, he sent a threatening text message to Canvers, whom he believed should've died in the crash. Because of the high-level threat, President Barack Obama orders two F-16 Falcon fighter jets to fly towards the plane and shoot it down upon the given order. Garcia manages to track the text Vasher sent to Canvens, allowing Hotch, Morgan, and Kate to find his residence and burst inside. There, they find Vasher operating a homemade remote control and hold him at gunpoint. Vasher promises to release the plane if the F-16's are called off, then uses the control to dive the plane downward. Hotch tells him that Oppenheimer regretted creating the atomic bomb in the end, but he refuses to listen and the F-16's are called off. With that known, Vasher releases the plane, but then declares "I am become Death" and regains control, forcing Hotch to fatally shoot him in the head, while Morgan shoots at the control, destroying it simultaneously.

Profile
The unsub is a mass annihilator who enjoys playing God or some other deity. He is not a terrorist in any sense (although it was later revealed that Vasher had political motivations for the crash, thus qualifying him as such), instead being a serial killer who wants to eradicate life on a massive scale. He will not stop with Trans Alliance Flight 420, and it is highly likely that he will attack another plane.

Modus Operandi
Vasher crashed Trans Alliance Airlines Flight 420 and attempted to crash Inter Atlantic Airlines Flight 61 by hacking into their computer systems, enabling him full control of the plane. During his attempt to crash Inter Atlantic Flight 61, he planned to crash into a random public location full of innocent people, which had been stated to be Washington, D.C.

Real-Life Comparison
Vasher seems to have been inspired by Theodore Kaczynski, a.k.a. "The Unabomber", whom the BAU briefly compared him to. Both were math geniuses who were also socially awkward and upheld anarchist views that motivated them to commit their killings, which were meant as attacks to society as a whole. The only differences between them were their views on technology (as noted by Garcia) and the weapons they used to carry out their attacks (Kaczynski used pipe bombs, while Vasher planned to use passenger jets).

Known Victims

 * 2014:
 * October 15: The Trans Alliance Airlines Flight 420 plane crash:
 * Captain Gerry Valmyre
 * First Officer Frank Canvers
 * Kristina Morrow
 * 149 other unnamed passengers and crew
 * October 16: The attempted Inter Atlantic Airlines Flight 61 plane crash:
 * Captain Margot Nolan
 * First Officer Philip Tran
 * 299 other unnamed passengers and crew
 * Numerous unnamed people on land
 * Note: Vasher was seen monitoring several other passenger flights in addition to Inter Atlantic Flight 61 and also had a list of the names of additional other flights, indicating that he also planned to crash these passenger jets as well, presumably into unknown targets on land. The flights are:
 * N4077
 * NFM923
 * TA260
 * BRD170
 * NRD110
 * ASG18
 * CW131
 * DBG14
 * TE38

Appearances

 * Season Ten
 * A Thousand Suns