An Alaska Airlines pilot who tried to shut down a passenger jet’s engines mid-flight after taking magic mushrooms said his actions were “incomprehensible,” in some of his first public comments since being charged with 83 counts of reckless endangerment.
in interview On ABC’s Good Morning America, Joseph Emerson described the events of October 22 as “30 seconds of my life that I wish I could change, but I can’t.”
Emerson, who was authorized to sit in the cockpit’s ejection seat as an off-duty pilot, attempted to disable the plane’s engines by deploying the fire suppression system, according to the federal complaint.
The plane, Horizon Air Flight 2059 from Everett, Washington, to San Francisco, was diverted to Portland, where it landed safely with more than 80 people on board.
After being arrested in Oregon on attempted murder charges, Emerson told police he believed he was having a nervous breakdown, thought he was dreaming when he pulled the fire levers in the cockpit, and said he had recently tried psychedelic mushrooms as his mental health deteriorated.
Emerson said he took psychedelic mushrooms two days earlier while commemorating the death of his best friend, believing it might help with his depression.
He said he believed he was still hallucinating and that “nothing felt real” while on the plane. “There was this sense of trap, like: ‘Am I trapped in this plane? This isn’t real, I need to wake up,'” he said.
Emerson said he reached out and grabbed two red handles in front of him that would activate the plane’s fire suppression system and cut off fuel to its engines at 30,000 feet.
“I thought, ‘This is going to wake me up,’” Emerson said. “I know what these levers do in a real airplane, and I need to wake up to this.”
The flight crew was able to subdue Emerson and remove him from the cockpit, but even as the plane was descending, he said he tried to grab another level of the plane to open the cabin door. According to an affidavit, Emerson warned the flight attendant, “You need to handcuff me now, or this is going to be bad.”
In December, he was charged with one count of first-degree endangering an aircraft and 83 counts of recklessly endangering another person — one count for each person on board the plane at the time of the crash. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is awaiting trial.
“I did something inexplicable to myself, something I have to take responsibility for and I regret it,” he said.
“Devoted student. Bacon advocate. Beer scholar. Troublemaker. Falls down a lot. Typical coffee enthusiast.”