An off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot who was accused of trying to shut down a plane’s engines during a Horizon Air flight from Everett had a long history of struggling with mental health issues and took a flight about two days before The incident involved psychedelic mushrooms, as investigators stated in the charging documents.
Joseph Emerson, who was sitting in a jump seat behind two Horizon pilots on the Sunday evening flight, is accused of trying to activate a fire suppression system that would have cut off fuel to the plane’s engines. The San Francisco-bound plane made an emergency landing in Portland after Emerson, 44, was forced off the flight deck and handcuffed by a flight attendant.
In statements to the Horizon flight crew and police, Emerson described suffering from depression and insomnia and claimed he thought he was dreaming when he tried to disable the plane, said an FBI special agent investigating the matter investigated, in an affidavit. Emerson, the FBI agent continued, told police, “It was his first time taking mushrooms.”
According to Alaska Airlines, Emerson was on duty for the last time on Thursday. Police allege he admitted to taking mushrooms on Friday. Emerson, a California resident with ties to Seattle, has been a commercial airline pilot since 2001 and has flown Alaska since 2016.
Emerson was arrested as the plane landed at Portland International Airport and later taken to the nearby Multnomah County Detention Center, where he remains incarcerated.
Federal and local authorities filed separate charges Tuesday against Emerson, 44, who has pleaded not guilty to 83 counts of attempted murder and other charges he faces in Oregon state court. He is expected to be arraigned later this week on a single federal charge of interfering with flight crew members and flight attendants.
Testimony released Tuesday from Oregon investigators, the FBI and Alaska Air Group — the SeaTac-based company that owns both Alaska Airlines and regional carrier Horizon Air — as well as passenger accounts provided new insight into the chaotic, tense scene over the Northwest Oregon’s and fresh air impressions of Emerson’s state of mind.
“He looked so normal”
Horizon Air Flight 2059 took off from Paine Field in Everett at 5:23 p.m. Sunday carrying 84 people, including Emerson. Gate agents and flight crew did not notice any signs of impairment that would have prevented Emerson from flying in the jump seat, an Alaska Airlines spokesman said.
If seats are available, it is common for airline employees to book free return trips to their home airports after their shift ends. A pilot commuting this way often chooses the jump seat to chat with the pilots flying. In Emerson’s case, there was only one empty jump seat on the plane.
According to the FBI agent’s statement, Emerson chatted casually with the Horizon crew until the flight was about halfway between Astoria, Oregon, and Portland. Then Emerson declared, “I’m not feeling well.”
One of the Horizon pilots watched as Emerson grabbed two red handles and pulled them down. The handles would have cut off fuel supply to the engines and activated the plane’s fire suppression system, which is used to put out engine fires.
If Emerson had successfully pulled the handles, the plane would have transformed into a glider within seconds, the FBI agent said. In a statement, Alaska said “there was no loss of engine power.”
After a struggle with the pilots that lasted about 30 seconds, Emerson left the cockpit. The pilots turned off the plane’s autopilot and diverted it to Portland.
The union representing the Horizon pilots, the Airline Professionals Association of Teamsters Local 1224, said the flight crew demonstrated poise, calm and professionalism during the incident and in the hours that followed. Pilots were the last line of defense between Horizon Air and a catastrophic incident, the union said.
Passengers Theresa Stelter, Matthew Dolan and Paul Stephen said Emerson walked down the aisle alone and passed through their rows unaccompanied.
“We’re lucky that he didn’t take any of his sudden and unexpected actions at that moment,” Stelter said in an interview Tuesday.
Stelter said a flight attendant then announced in a shaking voice that the plane was being diverted to Portland. The Embraer E175 began a steep, bumpy descent.
Dolan, Stelter’s partner, was reading a book and looked up as Emerson walked by. There seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary at Emerson, Dolan said. He was expressionless and walked confidently.
“He looked so normal,” Dolan said.
Five to 10 minutes after the initial announcement, the flight attendant informed passengers that the plane was fine, but that a passenger had had a medical emergency. Dolan said he found it strange that the flight attendant didn’t ask for a doctor or nurse on board to help.
The cabin lights were dimmed, Stelter said, before it was again announced that there had been an incident in the cockpit.
“They turned the lights down, which seemed a little strange to me in an emergency situation, but I assumed it was to calm us down,” Stelter said. “Now I assume it was to keep him calm.”
As he walked to the back of the plane, Emerson told a flight attendant that he needed to be handcuffed “or it’s going to be bad,” the FBI agent said in court papers. The flight attendants then handcuffed him and tied him to a seat in the back of the plane.
During the descent, the agent continued, Emerson tried to grab the emergency exit handle, but a flight attendant stopped him by placing her hands on his.
The flight attendant later told investigators that Emerson “messed everything up” and “tried to kill everyone,” according to the FBI agent’s statement.
Emerson told Port of Portland police and a flight attendant that his best friend had recently died and asked the flight attendant when “this nightmare would end,” according to charging documents filed by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office. A police officer said Emerson did not “outwardly” appear to be drunk.
The flight landed in Portland at 6:26 p.m. Some passengers received travel vouchers and were eventually sent on to San Francisco hours later. Stephen said he was offered a $300 flight credit, which he said was too low based on the experience, while Stelter said she wasn’t originally given a credit because they purchased the tickets on a third-party website.
In her view, Stelter accused Alaska of failing to communicate with passengers.
“I found it upsetting to learn from news articles along with the rest of the public without anyone reaching out and explaining what was going on or offering help,” Stelter said.
“Skillful acting”
When Emerson was arrested at the airport, he reportedly told police he was having a “nervous breakdown,” that he hadn’t slept in 40 hours and had been suffering from depression for six months. According to the FBI investigator, he felt dehydrated and tired.
“I wasn’t feeling well,” he told police, according to the FBI agent. “It seemed like the pilots weren’t paying attention to what was going on.”
Emerson then said he pulled the emergency handles because he thought he was dreaming and wanted to wake up. According to investigators, he noted that it was “the first time he took mushrooms.”
The U.S. Department of Transportation has a mandatory drug testing program for on-duty crew members that is administered by all airlines, including Alaska and Horizon. Pilots and flight attendants on duty can be randomly tested before or after a flight. The DOT declined to say when Emerson was last tested because it is considered confidential medical information.
According to the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction, a mushroom trip typically lasts four to six hours. However, according to experts interviewed for an Insider article, the substances can remain in a person’s body for up to 48 hours after ingestion and drug byproducts can be detected for 90 days.
“I’m not fighting the charges you want to bring against me, folks,” Emerson told police after his arrest, the federal criminal complaint states.
Public records show Emerson lives in Pleasant Hill, California, about 30 miles northeast of the city, with San Francisco as the Alaskan occupation base. Previously, while flying for Horizon, he lived in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle between 2003 and 2008, property records show. He doesn’t appear to have a criminal record.
Some who knew Emerson before Sunday’s incident described their shock at the allegations made against him.
“No sign that he was gone. Nothing,” Karen Yee, a neighbor whose grandchildren play with Emerson’s two elementary school children, told The (San Jose) Mercury News. “He is everything you would want in a good neighbor. We see him over the fence and on walks. Great guy. Great family.”
Mark Angelos, a senior flight instructor at the NRI Flying Club in Concord, Calif., who has known Emerson for 10 years, told The Associated Press that Emerson actually designed the club’s safety program.
Angelos said when he and other club members first heard the news, they couldn’t believe it was Emerson, a person they considered a loving family man.
“It just couldn’t have been our Joe,” he told the AP.
According to the spokesman, Alaska terminated Emerson indefinitely on Sunday and is consulting with the Air Line Pilots Association, the union that represents Alaska pilots, “concerning his employment status.”
“Our crew responded without hesitation to a difficult and highly unusual situation and we are incredibly proud and grateful for their skillful actions,” Alaska previously said.
Alaska said late Monday that “Emerson has complied with the medical certifications required by the FAA throughout his career … and at no time has his certifications been denied, suspended or revoked.”
The police statements are consistent with Alaska’s understanding of what happened, based on debriefings with the flight crew, a company spokesman said Tuesday.
Emerson will likely be arraigned on the federal charges later this week in U.S. District Court in Portland. This case will be presented to a grand jury to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to prosecute.
In addition to 83 counts of attempted murder, Multnomah County prosecutors have charged Emerson with 83 counts of reckless endangerment and one count of endangering an aircraft, a felony.