An Alaska Airlines pilot who tried to shut down a passenger jet’s engine mid-flight after taking magic mushrooms has spoken publicly for the first time since being charged with 83 counts of dangerous driving, saying his actions were “incomprehensible.”
In an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Joseph Emerson described the events of October 22 as “30 seconds of your life that you wish you could change, but you can’t.”
According to the federal complaint, Emerson, who was authorized to occupy a jump seat in the cockpit as an off-duty pilot, attempted to activate the fire suppression system and shut down the plane’s engines.
Horizon Air Flight 2059, en route from Everett, Washington to San Francisco, diverted to Portland and landed safely with more than 80 passengers on board.
After his arrest on attempted murder charges in Oregon, Emerson told police he believed he was having a nervous breakdown and thought he was dreaming when he pulled the fire handle in the cockpit, and said he had recently been experimenting with hallucinogenic mushrooms as his mental state worsened.
Emerson said he had taken hallucinogenic mushrooms two days earlier while mourning the death of a close friend and thought they might help ease his depression.
He said he was still hallucinating and “nothing felt real” while he was sitting on the plane. “I had this feeling of being trapped. I was like, ‘Am I trapped on this plane?’ This isn’t real. I need to wake up.”
Emerson said he reached out and grabbed two red handles in front of him, activating the plane’s fire suppression system and cutting off fuel to the engines at an altitude of 30,000 feet.
“I thought, ‘This is going to wake me up,'” Emerson said. “I know what the levers do in a real airplane, so this is what I need to wake me up from.”
Crew members were able to subdue Emerson and remove him from the cockpit, but he continued to try to open the cabin door and grab another floor as the plane was descending. “If you don’t handcuff me right now, I’m in big trouble,” Emerson warned flight attendants, according to the affidavit.
In December, he was indicted on one count of first-degree endangering an aircraft and 83 counts of reckless endangerment, one for each passenger who was on board the plane at the time of the accident. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is awaiting trial.
“I did things that I don’t even understand, I have to take responsibility for them and I regret them,” he said.
