The wife of an off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot fought back tears in court today as he was released on bail after pleading not guilty to 83 counts of reckless endangerment for attempting to crash a plane crashing while full of magic mushrooms.
Sarah Stretch, who shares two children with Joseph Emerson, spoke after the hearing in Multnomah County Circuit Court in Oregon.
“My boys will be so happy to have their father home,” she told reporters. “It’s been a long time and I’m just glad this is happening – he deserves to be home now.”
Emerson, 44, attempted to shut down the engines of an Alaska Airlines plane mid-flight on Oct. 22 after admitting to taking hallucinogenic drugs that left him in a confused state two days earlier.
On Thursday, he denied 83 counts of recklessly endangering another person and one count of endangering an aircraft. He was initially charged with attempted murder.
He posted $50,000 bail and his release was approved on the condition that he not come within 30 feet of any aircraft. He is due back in court on January 19.
Joseph David Emerson, back, appears for an arraignment hearing in Multnomah County Circuit Court in Portland, Oregon, on Thursday, December 7, 2023
Sarah Stretch (center) and Noah Horst (center right) speak to reporters after the arraignment hearing against Joseph David Emerson on Thursday
The father of two was initially charged with 83 counts of attempted murder, a charge for everyone on board the plane in which he nearly crashed. That charge was reduced to reckless endangerment last week
Emerson’s wife, Stretch, also said she was glad the case highlighted the importance of pilots’ mental health.
“I’m sad that this situation had to happen to my husband and the people affected. “But I know this has created a movement and momentum to help thousands of other pilots,” she said.
Defense attorney Noah Horst told reporters: “Is he criminally responsible?” No. Does he need help? Yes. Does Mr. Emerson deserve to be home with his family and surrounded by his friends today? Yes he does.’
Emerson was initially charged with attempted murder, but his case was reduced to reckless endangerment by a grand jury last week. The 83 counts of reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor, affect every person on board the aircraft.
After the charges were dropped, Emerson’s lawyers said in a statement that attempted murder was “never appropriate” because he “never intended to hurt another person or put anyone in danger – he just wanted to go home to his own.” His wife and children will return.”
“Simply put, Captain Emerson thought he was in a dream; “His actions were taken in a single-minded effort to wake up from this dream and return to his family,” the statement said.
Last month, Emerson broke his silence about the near-tragedy in an interview with The New York Times, in which he said he took the psychedelic drugs two days before the fateful flight during a weekend trip to remember his best friend, who Died in 2018.
The Alaska Airlines pilot said the drugs left him in a sleepless stupor for the next 48 hours, during which he questioned reality and suffered recurring panic attacks.
Pilot Joe Emerson, 44, said a manic magic mushroom-induced psychotic episode almost caused him to crash a passenger plane in October
The father-of-two (pictured at his final court appearance on October 24) pleaded not guilty to 83 counts of reckless endangerment
Emerson had dreamed of becoming a pilot since childhood, but admitted the October near-disaster had ended his time in the air
Emerson said he felt his grip on reality faltering as he prepared for the flight and texted his wife shortly before departure, expressing how desperate he was, simply to return home and told her, “I just want to hold you in my arms.”
With 83 passengers on board, Emerson was off duty and should have had a relaxing flight to San Francisco when he sat in the cockpit.
But the other pilots said he quickly began showing signs of erratic behavior, and as the plane reached cruising altitude, he ditched his headset and declared, “I’m not feeling well.”
Suddenly, Emerson grabbed the handles of the emergency fire extinguisher system on the plane’s ceiling, causing the engines to shut down, leading to a desperate struggle to keep the jet in the air.
Emerson said he was in the middle of a “bad trip” that he couldn’t shake and was convinced he had been sleeping and the only way to wake up was to crash the plane.
The magic mushrooms were taken by Emerson and his friends during a weekend trip to Methow Valley, Washington, to honor his best friend Scott Pinney, who passed away in 2018.
After the men took the magic mushrooms together, which he was assured would not fail a drug test and that the effects would wear off within hours, Emerson said he was filled with nightmarish paranoia and fear.
The feeling of dissociation remained for days as he relived past traumas in his mind and worried for no reason about his family. After barely getting any sleep, he set off for the fateful flight home.
Emerson’s wife – Sarah Stretch (pictured with her husband) – said she was stunned to learn he had dabbled in psychedelics on the trip because his “pilot career was his life.”
Emerson was led off the plane in handcuffs, and while in custody, he stripped naked, attempted to jump out of a window, urinated on himself, and attempted to masturbate in a crazy attempt to wake himself from his “dream.” .
Emerson said he walked through the airport in a daze, confused that airline staff appeared to be using the wrong protocols and nothing made sense to him.
The moment he became agitated in the cockpit happened when a text message was played in his headset via a voice-to-audio feature on his phone. He said he thought he was screaming for help but received no response from the other pilots.
He became convinced that the only way out of his nightmare was to wake himself up any way he could, which led to a frantic battle with the other pilots to keep the engines running.
The plane’s diversion to Oregon is the reason he is currently facing federal charges, even though he is from California.
Emerson was forced out of the cockpit but said he was still convinced he was dreaming as no one on board seemed to notice how close they were to death.
On the ground, police rushed to the Portland runway after a pilot warned: “We’ve got the guy who tried to shut off the engines from the cockpit.”
He was handcuffed and tied to the jet, but had enough room to move around so he could drink coffee straight from a pot while continuing to behave erratically.
Flight attendants have since said he repeatedly asked if the people on the plane were real or if he was in a nightmare.
Emerson said he was also able to reach his phone and text his friends from the getaway, telling them: “I’m having a nervous breakdown and tried to turn off both engines on my flight home.”
In a separate text message to his wife, he said only: “I made a big mistake.”
Emerson nearly shut down the engines during the flight by pulling on the plane’s emergency fire handles. (Pictured: the same type of aircraft as the one involved in the incident)
Emerson’s bizarre episode continued as he lay on the floor, stripped naked, attempted to jump out of a window, urinated on himself and masturbated in a mad attempt to wake himself up.
He asked the officers again if the situation he was in was real. When he was told what he had done, he replied: “If this is real and all this is real, then I have done something unimaginable to myself.”
His wife, Sarah Stretch, added that when he called her out of prison, he was so crazy that he started singing the Boyz II Men hit “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday.”
Stretch said she was stunned to learn that he had dabbled in psychedelics on the trip because his “pilot career was his life” and he had even avoided second-hand marijuana smoke in the past for fear of appearing on a drug test to fall through.
“This boy wanted to be an airline pilot since he was 11,” she said.
Those who knew Emerson reacted with shock to the incident, but no one was more shocked than the pilot himself, who says he is now filled with regret and shame over his senseless actions.
“I am appalled that these actions put myself and others at risk,” he said. “This crew was faced with a situation for which no manual, checklist or procedure was written.”
“And they did an exemplary job getting me and the rest of the people on that plane to safety.”
With his dream of becoming an airline pilot in tatters, Emerson expressed regret and said he wanted to be as transparent as possible about what had happened.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever fly a plane again… I really don’t know,” he concluded. “And I had a moment here where I realized something like that, and I had to grieve it.”