The rogue pilot was arrested and charged with 83 counts of attempted murder
An Alaska Airlines flight was diverted to Portland, Oregon on Sunday after the pilots informed air traffic control of a security risk onboard.
The flight was headed from Everett, Washington to San Francisco, California when Joseph David Emerson, a 44-year-old off-duty pilot employed by the carrier, attempted to shut off the plane’s engines. Emerson was flying as a passenger in the cockpit’s jump seat. The flight’s two pilots were able to subdue the potential plane-downing hijacker and remove him from out of the cockpit.
A transcript of one of the flight’s pilots contacting air traffic control was published by CNBC. The pilot, after the incident, said, “We’ve got the guy who tried to shut the engines down out of the cockpit and he doesn’t sound like he’s causing any issue in the back now. Other than that we want law enforcement as soon as we get on the ground and parked.”
Once the plane landed in Portland, Joseph David Emerson was arrested by law enforcement, according to the Daily Beast. The 44-year-old off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot is now facing 83 counts of attempted murder, 83 counts of reckless endangerment, and a count of endangering an aircraft. A possible motive has been reported on why the pilot would want to down a flight operated by his employer’s subsidiary, Horizon Air.
This wouldn’t be the first time an airline pilot has attempted to purposely crash a plane. Investigators believe that the co-pilot of Germanwings Flight 9525 intentionally crashed the flight in 2015, killing all 150 people onboard. Pilots occasionally commute on flights using the jump seats inside the cockpit. However, this recent incident might cause a shift in policy from carriers.
link: https://jalopnik.com/off-duty-alaska-airlines-pilot-tries-to-shut-off-engine-1850951141
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I commented on another post of this but I am so confused as to motive. I mean if it was purely to down a plane, wouldn’t he have done it when he was flying it and not off duty? This is just weird.
Probably figured that as just a passenger he would have been seen as just a victim if the plane had crashed, and all fault would have been pinned on the flight crew. So it wouldn’t be seen as him being suicidal but just a victim.
Maybe not medically fit to fly?
This really is a weird story. If he was off-duty, how did he get access to the cockpit? Also, I could be wrong on this, but I remember reading somewhere that it’s not unheard of to turn off and on an engine mid-flight to restart it. Not sure if this was his intent, but it’s the only thing I could think of that sounds reasonable.
Call of the void?
Suicidal thoughts and wanted to go dramatically?
Just a dick and wanted content for his brand new YouTube prank show?
Who knows.
“It’s just a prank, bro!”
I commented this on another thread, but my theory is that it might be something like FedEx 705.
Dude letting the intrusive thoughts win apparently.
Good way to fuck your life up.
If you weren’t depressed before you sure as fuck will be now as you live in prison.
What a moron.
God damn, that sentence is bigger then most serial killers
He hasn’t been sentenced yet, only charged.
So the pilot apparently told police that he was on magic mushrooms and hadn’t slept for 40 hours.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/24/us/alaska-airlines-off-duty-pilot-arraignment.html
Just the guy I’d like to have in charge of my plane!
Text of article:
Pilot Who Disrupted Flight Said He Had Taken Psychedelic Mushrooms, Complaint Says In an interview with the police, the off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot also said he thought he was having a nervous breakdown and had not slept in 40 hours, according to a criminal complaint.
An off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot who tried to shut off the engines during a flight on Sunday told investigators that he thought he was having a nervous breakdown at the time and had consumed psychedelic mushrooms, court documents said.
In an interview with the police after he was taken into custody, the pilot, Joseph D. Emerson, 44, said he had not slept in 40 hours and had been depressed for about six months, according to a federal criminal complaint.
The officer and Mr. Emerson “talked about the use of psychedelic mushrooms, and Emerson said it was his first time taking mushrooms,” the criminal complaint states.
The complaint did not provide further details about when Mr. Emerson consumed the mushrooms or the quantity taken, or how he consumed them.
“I didn’t feel OK,” Mr. Emerson told the police, according to the criminal complaint. “It seemed like the pilots weren’t paying attention to what was going on.”
He also told the police, according to the complaint, “I pulled both emergency shut off handles because I thought I was dreaming and I just wanna wake up.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Oregon said on Tuesday that Mr. Emerson had been charged in federal court with one count of interfering with flight crew members and attendants.
Mr. Emerson has also been charged in Multnomah County Circuit Court in Portland, Ore., with 83 counts of attempted murder, 83 counts of reckless endangerment and one count of endangering an aircraft, court records show. He is to be arraigned on those charges on Tuesday afternoon.
It was not immediately clear if Mr. Emerson had a lawyer.
Mr. Emerson, of Pleasant Hill, Calif., has been an airline pilot for more than two decades. Throughout his career, he has completed his required Federal Aviation Administration medical certifications, and his certifications have been never denied, suspended or revoked, Alaska Airlines said. Multnomah County court records indicate he does not have a criminal record.
On Sunday, Mr. Emerson was riding in a jump seat in the cockpit of an Alaska Airlines jet, an Embraer 175, the authorities said. The flight, operated by Horizon Air, a regional subsidiary, left Everett, Wash., about 5:23 p.m. bound for San Francisco, with four crew members and 80 passengers onboard. Professional pilots say it is common for them to ride in the cockpit jump seat while shuttling to and from work.
At first, Mr. Emerson chatted casually with the two pilots in the cockpit, talking about different types of aircraft, the complaint states.
But when the plane was about halfway between Astoria, Ore., and Portland, one of the pilots saw Mr. Emerson throw his headset across the cockpit and announce, “I’m not OK,” the complaint sates. The pilot then saw Mr. Emerson try to grab two red handles that cut off fuel to the engines, the complaint states.
After a brief physical struggle with the pilots, Mr. Emerson left the cockpit. Alaska Airlines said in a statement on Monday that, because “some residual fuel” remained in the line, “the quick reaction of our crew to reset the handles restored fuel flow and prevented fuel starvation.”
If Mr. Emerson had successfully pulled the engine shut-off handles down all the way, “then it would have shut down the hydraulics and the fuel to the engines, turning the aircraft into a glider within seconds,” the complaint states.
While walking to the back of the plane after he left the cockpit, Mr. Emerson said to a flight attendant, “You need to cuff me right now or it’s going to be bad,” according to the complaint. After Mr. Emerson was restrained in the back of the plane, he tried to grab the handle of an emergency exit door, but was stopped by a flight attendant, federal prosecutors said.
Another flight attendant heard Mr. Emerson “make statements such as, ‘I messed everything up’ and that ‘he tried to kill everybody,’” the complaint states.
Acting according to F.A.A. procedures and guidance from air traffic controllers, the crew diverted the plane to Portland International Airport, where it landed safely at about 6:30 p.m.
After Mr. Emerson was escorted off the plane, a passenger, Aubrey Gavello, told ABC News: “The flight attendant got back on the speaker and said, plain and simple: ‘He had a mental breakdown. We needed to get him off the plane immediately.’”
Psychedelics have been gaining medical and legal acceptance, propelled by a growing body of research suggesting that they could be used in the treatment of mental disorders. On Jan. 1, Oregon became the first state to legalize the adult use of psilocybin derived from mushrooms.
Voters in Colorado approved a measure last year to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms and to set the state on the path to a legal therapeutic market. In other states, including Texas, lawmakers have authorized studies of psilocybin for treating ailments such as post-traumatic stress disorder.
The F.D.A. has granted the drug “breakthrough therapy” status, which allows for expedited review of substances that have demonstrated substantial promise.
Mr. Emerson joined Horizon Airlines as a first officer in August 2001, Alaska Airlines said. In June 2012, he joined Virgin America as a pilot. When Alaska Airlines acquired Virgin in 2016, Mr. Emerson rejoined the company as a first officer for Alaska Airlines. In 2019, he became a captain, the company said.
Great. So now the processs of legalizing psylocybin has probably been set back years all because some asshole decided that the best way to try it out for the first time would be to take enough to trip balls when he was going to be in the cockpit of a passenger plane. This is no different than if he had been drunk but it’s still going to be used as ammunition to keep psylocybin clasified as a schedule 1 drug.
even if he did do it, it wouldn’t be that dangerous would it? a plane is designed to glide, it wouldn’t just drop out of the sky with the engines off for a second.
It would be very dangerous, yes. I would not count it as “attempted murder” dangerous as yes, there are ways to restart the engines mid flight by windmilling. Depending on altitude the pilots will have time to restart the engines, or glide into an emergency landing.
