A 46-year-old former Alaska Airlines pilot, Joseph Emerson, faces decades in prison for trying to shut down his plane mid-flight, citing a lack of sleep and psychedelic mushroom consumption.
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As reported by PEOPLE, Emerson pleaded guilty to interference with flight crew members and attendants in connection with the October 2023 incident. He will waive a grand jury indictment and faces up to 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and three years of probation.
Emerson’s sentencing will occur on November 17.
The incident occurred back on October 22, 2023. Emerson, a then-pilot for Alaska Airlines, was in the cockpit’s jump seat, flying from Seattle to San Francisco. At one moment during the flight, he shockingly attempted to shut off the plane’s engines. He tried to pull the engine fire handles, as per PEOPLE.
A criminal complaint alleged that Emerson threw his headphones across the cockpit and stated, “I am not okay.”
He was definitely not okay, and flight attendants quickly restrained him, preventing a major catastrophe and forcing an emergency landing. In Portland, Emerson was arrested.
Psychedelic Mushroom Dream
During his subsequent questioning, Emerson told the police that he was having a mental breakdown. He was sleep-deprived and, shockingly, he revealed that he had ingested psychedelic mushrooms two days before the flight. As per The Associated Press, he was mourning a friend’s recent death.
Furthermore, Emerson believed that he was dreaming during the flight and felt the urge to “wake up.”
“What I thought is, ‘This is going to wake me up,'” Emerson said at the time, as per ABC. “‘I know what those levers do in a real airplane and I need to wake up from this.’ You know, it’s 30 seconds of my life that I wish I could change, and I can’t.”
As reported by CNN, Joseph Emerson was also charged in Oregon with 83 counts of endangering another person and one count of endangering an aircraft. He initially pleaded guilty to all charges and was released in December 2023.
As per NBC News, Emerson pleaded no contest to his state charges. He was sentenced to 50 days in jail and five years’ probation. The former pilot was also sentenced to 664 hours of community service and ordered to pay $60,569 in restitution.