This is an unprecedented event in the history of air transport, one that could have turned into a tragedy. In October 2023, Joseph David Emerson, a 44-year-old airline pilot, travelled as a simple passenger on a domestic flight with his company Alaska Airlines between Everett, Washington and San Francisco.
As is often the case when there is an in-house pilot on board, he is allowed to sit in the cockpit’s jump seat.
But while the plane is in flight, the man tells the on-board command: “I don’t feel well,” then tries to grab the two red handles to activate the plane’s fire extinguishing system, which would have the effect of cutting off the fuel supply to the engines.
“You have to handcuff me.”
However, the crew managed to stop him from pulling these handles and ordered him to leave the cabin. He then calmly returns to the cockpit and tells a flight attendant: “You have to handcuff me right now or things will get bad.”
The plane and its 80 people on board diverted, landed in Portland, and the man was arrested by police. We later learned that he had taken magic mushrooms 48 hours before the flight and was suffering from depression.
“I pulled both emergency stop handles because I thought I was dreaming and wanted to wake up,” she told police, according to the criminal complaint.
He is charged with attempted murder, endangering the lives of others and endangering an aircraft.
Almost a year later, Joseph David Emerson spoke in a long interview with the American channel ABC.
“It was the biggest mistake of my life,” he admits, referring to a state of depression following the death of his best friend, Scott, a driver who had died six years earlier during a race.
The feeling of being trapped
He believes the effects of the hallucinogenic mushrooms were still present when he boarded that plane.
His paranoid conviction then grows stronger that “this isn’t real, I’m not really going home… until I’m completely convinced that none of this was real.”
“That’s when I threw my helmet away and was totally convinced that this wasn’t real and I wasn’t going to go home,” he recalls. “And then, because the pilots didn’t react to my completely abnormal behavior in a way that I thought was consistent with reality, that’s when I told myself it wasn’t real.”
“What I was thinking was, ‘This is going to wake me up.’ I know what these levers do on a real airplane, and I need to wake myself up to this. You know, it’s 30 seconds of my life that I wish I had. I could change it, and I can’t.”
a gift
But when he returned to the cabin, the crisis was far from over. “At one point I thought maybe this wasn’t real and maybe I could wake up by jumping.” He then tries to open one of the cabin’s exits.
“I put my hand on the lever, but I didn’t pull it,” he recalls, at which point a flight attendant stopped him before handcuffing him.
Emerson spent the next 45 days in jail before being released on bail.
The prison doctor later explained to him that he suffered from a condition called Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder (HPPD), which can cause a person taking psychedelic mushrooms for the first time to experience persistent visual hallucinations or perception problems for several days.
Although he is no longer charged with attempted murder, he still faces more than 80 charges. He could benefit from a plea deal. His trial is expected to take place this fall.
Source: BFM TV
