Air traffic audio and flight data are helping to paint a fuller picture of what happened after authorities said Joseph D. Emerson, an off-duty pilot in the cockpit of Horizon Air Flight 2059, tried to shut down the plane’s engines as it flew over Oregon Sunday.
Pilots Alan Koziol and Emil Riemer said they chatted briefly with Emerson as they flew the plane from Everett, Washington, to San Francisco. Over northwest Oregon, Emerson suddenly threw his headset over the cockpit and said, “I’m not feeling well,” according to court documents.
According to court documents, Emerson then reached up and grabbed the red emergency fire handles marked “EXTG” to shut off fuel to the plane’s engines.
Koziol grabbed Emerson’s wrist and wrestled with him for about 30 seconds. Meanwhile, according to court documents, Riemer declared an emergency on board, turned off the autopilot and diverted the plane to Portland.
It is unclear what communications occurred during and immediately after the incident, according to publicly available audio recordings reviewed by The Oregonian/OregonLive. However, in this flight audio, a pilot can be seen explaining the situation at 6:11 p.m., about six minutes after the plane began returning to Portland.
“We got the guy who was trying to shut off the engines out of the cockpit and it doesn’t sound like he’s causing any problems in the back at the moment. “I think it’s subdued,” a pilot reported. “Otherwise we want law enforcement as soon as we’re on the ground and parked.”
According to an amended federal affidavit, this transmission appears to have occurred after Emerson left the cockpit and walked to the rear of the plane.
“You have to handcuff me before I do something wrong, it’s going to be bad,” Emerson said to a flight attendant in the back of the plane, according to the affidavit. The flight attendant then put flexible cuffs on him.
As the plane continued to descend toward Portland, Emerson turned toward the emergency exit door and tried to grab the handle, the affidavit said. A flight attendant stopped him by placing her hands on his, then continued talking to him to distract him from reaching for the emergency exit handle again. The guard secured him with a seatbelt, the affidavit states.
The plane landed at 6:26 p.m. on Sunday. Port of Portland police boarded the plane and arrested Emerson. He later told investigators that he thought he was dreaming and wanted to wake up and that he thought he was having a “nervous breakdown,” court records say.
Emerson said he didn’t sleep for 40 hours and took psychedelic mushrooms for the first time two days before the flight. Police wrote that he did not appear drunk when he was arrested, court records show.
Emerson was arraigned Tuesday afternoon in Multnomah County District Court and charged with 83 counts of attempted murder and reckless endangerment in the case. He is also accused in federal court of one count of interfering with flight crew members and flight attendants.
Emerson’s wife said in federal court Thursday that her husband “never knowingly” attempted to harm himself or others on the plane.
– Catalina Gaitan, [email protected], and Mark Friesen, [email protected]
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