An off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot who tried to turn off the engines on a plane he was hitching a ride on told arresting officers that he’d been taking psychedelic mushrooms to treat his depression, according to court documents highlighted by NBC News Producer Daniel Barnes on X.
The incident happened over the weekend on Sunday when the pilot, Joseph David Emerson, was on a plane headed to San Francisco, reported airlive.net. One pilot, whose name wasn’t released, told the police that he’d never met Emerson before, but that they’d chatted casually about planes together during the flight without any indication that anything was wrong.
Suddenly, while halfway between Astoria, Oregon, and Portland, Oregon heading south, Emerson threw his headset across the cockpit and said “I’m not okay,” according to the affidavit, and reached up and grabbed red fire handles in the cockpit. Many American airlines allow off-duty pilots to hitch rides on their routes and sit in the cockpit on what’s called a “jump seat.”
The pilot grabbed Emerson’s wrist and engaged him “physically” for about 25-30 seconds before he calmed down. He asked Emerson to leave the cockpit and he did. The whole thing happened in around 90 seconds, the pilot said.
If the handle had been pulled, the pilots explained, the fuel source would have been cut off to the engine, a fire safety measure common on planes. The hydraulics would also have shut down, “turning the aircraft into a glider within seconds,” according to the affidavit.
After Emerson left the cockpit, the pilots sealed the door and turned the plane around to land in Portland.
Emerson told flight attendants in the cabin that he’d “just got kicked out of the flight deck,” and that “you need to cuff me right now or it’s going to be bad.”
They cuffed him by his wrists but while the plane was descending Emerson turned to an emergency exit and tried to grab the handle. The flight attendant stopped him by putting her hands on him and talking with him.
Another flight attendant heard Emerson say “I messed everything up” and that “he tried to kill everybody.” The flight attendant also said she saw Emerson take out his cellphone to text, and heard him saying something to the effect that he’d just put 84 peoples’ lives at risk, including his own
Emerson was arrested when the airplane landed and interviewed by the pilot. He told them that he’d been feeling dehydrated and tired.
“I didn’t feel okay. It seemed like the pilots weren’t paying attention to what was going on,” he told the police. “They didn’t … it didn’t seem right.”
Emerson also said “Yah … I pulled both emergency shut off handles because I thought I was dreaming and I just wanna wake up.” He said he wasn’t on medication, but that he’d become depressed about six months ago and had talked about using psychedelic mushrooms.
“The officer and EMERSON talked about the use of psychedelic mushrooms and EMERSON said it was his first time taking mushrooms,” reads the affidavit.
Alaska Airlines didn’t respond to a question about whether Emerson was still employed by the company, or what their jump seat policy is.
The affidavit noted that the jump seat was located right next to the red emergency fire handles.