Alleged Sabotage: Off-Duty Pilot Blames Mental Breakdown

• Off-duty pilot Emerson claims a nervous breakdown led to alleged plane incident.
• Facing 83 counts of attempted murder and reckless endangerment.
• Attempted to access cockpit controls during Alaska Airlines flight.

According to court documents, Joseph David Emerson, an off-duty pilot accused of attempting to crash a passenger jet, claims he acted during a severe nervous breakdown.

Emerson faces 83 counts of attempted murder for the incident that took place on an Alaska Airlines flight.

Allegedly, while seated in the cockpit behind the captain and first officer, he told the pilots he was not in a stable state and then attempted to access the shutoff handles.

The criminal complaint notes that one of the pilots had to physically restrain Emerson until he ceased resisting and was removed from the cockpit.

After being subdued, Mr. Emerson said to flight attendants: “You need to cuff me right now or it’s going to be bad” and later tried to reach for the emergency exit handle during the plane’s descent, the documents say.

One flight attended said they observed Mr. Emerson saying “I messed everything up” and that he “tried to kill everybody”.

During his police interview, Mr. Emerson told investigators he had a “nervous breakdown” and had not slept for 40 hours.

“I pulled both emergency shut off handles because I thought I was dreaming and I just wanna wake up,” he said. “I didn’t feel okay. It seemed like the pilots weren’t paying attention to what was going on. They didn’t…it didn’t seem right.”

“I’m admitting to what I did. I’m not fighting any charges you want to bring against me, guys,” he added.

The complaint also reveals that Mr. Emerson mentioned consuming psychedelic mushrooms. A spokesperson from the United States Attorney’s Office stated that an investigation is ongoing to determine whether Mr. Emerson was indeed under the influence of psychedelic substances at the time of the incident.

In addition to the attempted murder charges, Mr. Emerson faces 83 counts of reckless endangerment and the endangerment of an aircraft.

The flight, originally en route from Everett, Washington, to San Francisco, California, had 80 passengers on board. It was subsequently rerouted to Portland, Oregon.

A passenger named Aubrey Gavello informed ABC News that the passengers were unaware of any issues with the flight until a flight attendant announced the need for an immediate landing, citing a medical emergency.

Ms. Gavello told the outlet she heard a flight attendant tell the suspect: “We’re going to be fine, it’s OK, we’ll get you off the plane.”

“So I really thought it was a serious medical emergency,” she said.

Another passenger informed the news outlet that the incident was managed with professionalism, and the passengers remained unaware of the crisis.

Mr. Emerson is scheduled for his initial court appearance in Portland, Oregon, on Tuesday.

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