The former pilot who tried to shut down a passenger plane’s engines in mid-flight hopes he will one day be able to fly again.
Joseph Emerson, 44, spoke in his most extensive interview since the incident about the tragic mistake that ruined his career, the emotional impact on his family and his future prospects.
“It’s 30 seconds of my life that I would like to change, but I can’t,” he said in an interview with ABC News published Friday.
Pilot accused of trying to crash plane says he tried to wake up from his dream
Emerson was sitting in the jump seat of Horizon Airlines Flight 2059, a subsidiary of Alaska Airlines, when he allegedly attempted to pull two levers that would have activated a fire extinguishing system and cut off the fuel supply to the engines.
The pilot at the time had taken psychoactive mushrooms during a weekend trip with friends in memory of his deceased friend the week before the incident.
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The psychedelic effects of the mushrooms usually last a few hours, but Emerson claims he suffered from the side effects for days.
The plane was en route from Everett, Washington, to San Francisco on October 22 when Emerson began to lose touch with reality and began to believe he was “trapped” in an “imaginary” airplane.
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“That’s when I dropped the headset and I was completely convinced that this isn’t real and I’m not going home,” Emerson told ABC. “And then when the pilots didn’t respond to my completely abnormal behavior in a way that I thought was realistic, I thought: This isn’t real. I need to wake up.”
He attempted to pull the red levers that would have shut down the plane’s engines in midair, likely killing all 83 people on board. Tragedy was averted when pilots arrested Emerson and landed the plane safely in Portland, Oregon.
Emerson said a prison doctor diagnosed him with persistent perceptual disorder caused by hallucinogens, a condition that prolonged his experience with the psychedelics and caused his confusion about reality in the cockpit.
He pleaded not guilty to 83 charges of attempted murder, 83 counts of reckless endangerment and one count of endangering an aircraft in connection with the incident.
The murder charge against Emerson was dropped, but the former pilot still faces more than 80 state and federal charges.
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“Ultimately, I take responsibility for the choices I made. They are my choices,” Emerson said. “I hope that through the legal process, when society judges me for what happened, not just the 30 seconds of the event, but my entire experience will be taken into account. And I will accept the blame that society places on me.”
Emerson is currently focused on launching his new nonprofit organization, Clear Skies Ahead, which aims to fund programs for pilots with mental health issues.
“Of course I want to fly again. It would be completely disingenuous if I said no,” he said. “I don’t know in what capacity I will fly again and I don’t know if that opportunity will be presented to me. It’s not up to me to arrange that. What’s up to me is to do what’s in front of me, to put myself in a position where that’s a possibility that it can happen.”
FOX Business’ Michael Dorgan contributed to this report.
Source of the original article: Former Alaska Airlines pilot who tried to shut down plane engines says he wants to fly again
