A Multnomah County grand jury has ruled that the off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot who tried to shut off a plane’s engines in flight in October during an apparent drug-related mental health crisis should not face 83 counts of attempted murder.
Instead, jurors this week chose to indict Joseph David Emerson on 83 counts of recklessly endangering another person – far less serious crimes if he is convicted. He also faces a single count of endangering an aircraft, a felony.
Since late October, Multnomah County prosecutors have been asking jurors whether Emerson, 44, should be charged with violating Oregon law on Oct. 22 – more than 30,000 feet in the air – somewhere between Astoria and Portland.
At that point, Emerson, sitting in the cockpit of a Horizon Airlines Embraer 175 jet heading home from Everett, Washington, to San Francisco, took off his headphones and stated, “I’m not feeling well,” before, according to court documents he almost cut off the plane’s fuel supply mid-flight. Witnesses said he acted erratically and appeared confused about his reality.
FILE: Joseph David Emerson, left, 44, was arraigned on October 24, 2023 in Multnomah County District Court in Portland, Oregon. The former Alaska Airlines pilot attempted to shut down the engines while sitting in the jump seat in the cockpit, according to police. A Horizon Air flight made his first appearance in federal court in Portland on Thursday, October 26, 2023.
Dave Killen/AP
“I pulled both emergency stop handles because I thought I was dreaming and just waking up,” Emerson told police, according to court documents. “I tried to wake up. I didn’t feel like it was real.”
Under Oregon law, any person charged with a crime will either receive a preliminary hearing or have their case heard by a grand jury. Since his arrest at Portland International Airport, Emerson, a father, husband and veteran airline pilot, remains housed in the Multnomah County Detention Center. Emerson’s attorneys, Noah Horst, Ethan Levi and Norah Van Dusen, said they were working on a release plan and expected he would be out of prison and back home in California by the end of the week.
“The attempted murder charge was never appropriate in this case because Captain Emerson never intended to harm another person or put anyone in danger – he just wanted to return home to his wife and children,” Emerson’s defense team said in a statement. “Simply put, Captain Emerson thought he was in a dream; His actions were in a single-minded effort to wake up from this dream and return to his family.”
The incident has drawn national attention, in part because initial court filings and news reports suggested that Emerson attempted to take control of the plane while high on hallucinogenic mushrooms. Emerson’s case takes place in Multnomah County because the jet was diverted there and eventually landed safely. Although it has almost nothing to do with the core public safety challenges facing Oregon’s most populous county — where prosecutors face a host of challenges that include a shortage of public defenders, rising drug use and the ongoing homelessness crisis. Still, prosecutors have spent more than a month calling police officers, pilots and others before six juries.
Almost simultaneously with local prosecutors, the U.S. Department of Justice charged Emerson with a federal crime: interfering with flight crew members and flight attendants.
He pleaded not guilty to all criminal charges. Emerson’s lawyers argued their client had no criminal intent and said they were disappointed the grand jury brought even less serious charges.
“The grand jury is a largely secret process controlled by the prosecution, and defense attorneys are not permitted to make any arguments before the grand jury,” Emerson’s defense team said. “While we believe that the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office treated Mr. Emerson fairly, we do not know why the grand jury reached its indictment decision, nor have we had the opportunity to review all of the evidence that the district attorney ultimately presented to the grand jury. “
Prosecutors in Oregon rarely file charges for recklessly attacking an aircraft. According to the Oregon Department of Justice, local prosecutors have never charged the case as a crime in the last five years. The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office filed misdemeanor charges twice, in 2018 and again in 2020, but in both cases the defendants were not convicted of the charges, according to court records.
Emerson, who rose to captain at Alaska Airlines, has been flying as a commercial pilot for more than 20 years.
The days leading up to that moment on Oct. 22 were emotionally intense for him, according to family members and his own comments to investigators. Emerson had spent the weekend of the flight thinking about and mourning his closest friend, Scott Pinney, who died suddenly five and a half years ago. Emerson told police he didn’t sleep for more than 40 hours and took psychedelic mushrooms sometime on Oct. 20, two days before he boarded the Horizon Airlines flight home.
Emerson also told police that despite years of depression, he had not undergone a psychological evaluation.
Emerson’s wife, Sarah Stretch, previously told OPB that she urged her husband to get help for his mental health after Pinney’s death.
“I thought, ‘Maybe you should talk to someone,'” Stretch told OPB. “And then he said to me, ‘Sarah, I can’t be unemployed. We have a mortgage to pay. If I do that, I’m going to have to go through all these other hurdles… and we can’t afford that.’”
Alaska Airlines pilot Joseph Emerson, in this undated submitted photo.
Courtesy of the Emerson family
Psychiatric treatment can be challenging and even career-ending for pilots. The Federal Aviation Administration relies on pilots to self-report mental health problems. This can cost pilots their ability to fly. And to get their medical clearance back, pilots may have to pass an exam or provide certifications from a therapist.
During a speech last month in Washington, D.C., National Transportation Safety Bureau Director Jennifer Homendy said the FAA’s rules have not kept pace with scientific or cultural norms in the area of mental health.
“It’s something of an open secret that the current rules are leading people to either lie about their medical history when it comes to mental health or avoid seeking help in the first place,” Homendy said during the speech on November 2nd. “I am frankly concerned about the safety implications of a system that unintentionally shames and silences people who are struggling.”
Emerson was arrested Oct. 22 after the Horizon Airlines flight diverted and landed in Portland. At that time, he told police that he pulled both emergency stop handles in the cockpit, according to court documents.
One of the pilots on duty told police that activating the fire extinguishing system cut off the fuel supply to the engines, according to federal prosecutors’ files.
In a statement, Alaska Airlines said there was no loss of engine power.
“The fire suppression system consists of a T-handle for each engine,” the airline said. “When the T-handle is fully extended, a valve in the wing closes to shut off fuel to the engine. In this case, our crew’s quick response in resetting the T-handles ensured that engine power was not lost.”
Port of Portland Police Officer Grant Thommen asked Emerson if he tried to take his own life during the incident, but Emerson did not answer the question, according to documents filed by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office.
“Emerson repeated that he tried to wake up and did not feel like ‘this was real,’ even though it felt real now,” prosecutors wrote.
Several passengers aboard the flight filed a lawsuit in King County Superior Court in Washington on November 2, arguing that Alaska Airlines “failed to conduct rigorous pre-flight security checks.”
According to Alaska Airlines, the gate agent confirmed that Emerson was an off-duty pilot and “followed well-established FAA-mandated practices to authorize Emerson to ride as a passenger in the cockpit jump seat.”
“At no time during the check-in or boarding process did our gate agents or flight crew encounter any signs of impairment that would have led them to prevent Emerson from flying on Flight 2059,” the airline said in a statement dated March 23 October announced.
Later, all passengers boarded another plane with a new crew to San Francisco.