The out-of-control airline pilot who tried to down an Alaskan Airlines flight midair told cops he had taken magic mushrooms before the flight, it emerged Tuesday.
Joseph Emerson, 44, an off-duty commercial airline pilot, went off the rails while sitting in the cockpit jump seat of a flight between Everett, Washington, and San Francisco on Sunday — trying to cut the fuel to the engines before he had to be held down by crew members.
Even while restrained, Emerson tried to open the emergency doors on the Alaskan flight, which was being operated by Horizon Air, as the pilots frantically guided the craft to the ground.
When later interviewed by police he said he had a “nervous breakdown” after not sleeping for 40 hours and taking psychedelic mushrooms for the first time.
“I didn’t feel okay. It seemed like the pilots weren’t paying attention to what was going on. They didn’t… it didn’t seem right,” Emerson told police, according to an affidavit obtained by The Post.
“You need to cuff me right now or it’s going to be bad,” he told a flight attendant after getting booted from the cockpit, the affidavit said.
“I messed everything up,” Emerson told the crew member, adding that “he tried to kill everybody.”
Although the affidavit doesn’t state whether Emerson was under the influence of the mushrooms while on the plane, he later added: “I pulled both emergency shut-off handles because I thought I was dreaming and I just wanna wake up.”
After the plane, carrying 83 people had made a successful emergency landing in Portland, Oregon, the married father of two was taken into custody and booked at the Multnomah County Detention Center.
“I’m admitting to what I did,” Emerson told cops in Portland, the affidavit said. “I’m not fighting any charges you want to bring against me, guys.”
On Tuesday the feds added their own charge and hit him with one count of interfering with flight crew members and attendants.
Emerson also appeared in Oregon state court on Tuesday afternoon, where he pleaded not guilty to 83 counts of attempted murder and one count of endangering an aircraft, all felony charges.
He was also slapped with 83 misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment, to which he also pleaded not guilty.
Emerson told investigators he became depressed six months earlier.
The pilot’s neighbors in Pleasant Hill, California, where Emerson has lived with his wife and kids for about five years, called the incident uncharacteristic of the suburban dad.
“When I heard about the incident my initial response was [that] he was having some kind of psychological issue because it’s not at all normal for him,” next-door neighbor Karen Yee told The Post.
“They are a great family and I just feel bad for them,” Yee said. “I just can’t imagine him doing what he was doing. The whole neighborhood is in total shock because he’s loved by everybody.”
The plane’s two pilots told federal investigators that they were having a “casual conversation” with Emerson when he reached for the red handles that activate the emergency fire suppression system, which would have cut off the fuel supply feeding the jet engines.
The pilots later told police they had “zero indication” that Emerson was going to fly off the handle.
After a 30-second scuffle, they kicked him out of the cockpit, locked the door, and notified the flight attendants that he was “losing it.”
He was placed in wrist restraints near the back of the plane and then had to be held down again when he lunged for the emergency doors.
Although all passengers on the aircraft were safe, they were shaken up by the bizarre incident.
“The flight attendant got back on the speaker and said, plain and simple, ‘He had a mental breakdown,'” passenger Aubrey Gavello told ABC News this week. “‘We needed to get him off the plane immediately.'”
The incident also played out in dramatic air traffic control chatter.
“We’ve got the guy that tried to shut the engines down out of the cockpit and he doesn’t sound like he’s causing any issues in the back right now,” a pilot tells air-traffic control, according to audio obtained from LiveATC.net.
“We’d like law enforcement as soon as we get on the ground and park,” he said.
Emerson was riding in the cockpit jump seat as a courtesy typically extended to off-duty pilots on a flight.
Additional reporting by Marjorie Hernandez
