(NEW YORK) — Joseph Emerson, a former Alaska Airlines pilot, calls it the biggest mistake of his life.
Emerson was in the cockpit of an Alaska Airlines plane last October when, at 30,000 feet, he raised his arms and pulled two large red levers that could have shut down both engines. He describes the incident as the worst 30 seconds of his life.
Ten months later, he is now grateful for those moments: They saved his marriage, allowed him to spend more time with his children and launched him into a life of therapy, recovery and the founding of a new nonprofit organization to help other pilots struggling with mental illness.
Now Emerson and his wife Sarah describe that incident and the fearful, difficult months that followed in an interview with ABC News.
“I made a big mistake.”
Emerson texted his wife Sarah on October 22, 2023, shortly after he was removed from the cockpit and shortly before he asked a flight attendant to handcuff him.
“I made a big mistake,” was the message.
Sarah Emerson replied, “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“I’m not,” Joe Emerson replied.
That was the last Sarah Emerson heard from her husband for several days. She immediately tracked his flight and learned that it had been diverted and made an emergency landing in Portland.
For 24 hours, Sarah knew little of what had happened. It was only when a prison receptionist told her that she learned that her husband had been charged with 83 counts of attempted murder – one count for each person on board the plane.
“I go to the window and say I’m looking for my husband and he just looks at the computer and types a few things and then casually tells me the charges and I lost it,” Sarah Emerson told ABC News. “I was screaming and falling over and almost falling. They grabbed me and pulled me over because I know what that means. I was in complete shock.”
What happened
Joe Emerson was struggling with the death of his best friend Scott, a pilot who had died on a flight six years earlier. Emerson had gone away for the weekend with friends to celebrate and remember Scott.
On Friday night, the group took psychedelic mushrooms – a drug that can induce hallucinations and whose effects usually last a few hours. Emerson said for him, the physical side effects lasted for days, but the effects lasted a lifetime.
Joe and Sarah Emerson speak with ABC News.
Something was wrong
As a friend drove him to the airport, Emerson could only think about being home with his family, but the fear that he would never make it grew stronger. That fear grew worse as he settled into his jump seat in the cramped cockpit of the Alaska Airlines jet.
“It was a feeling of imprisonment, like, ‘Am I trapped on this plane and can I never get home now?'” Emerson told ABC News in an interview near his home in California.
Emerson said the feeling grew stronger – and with it the belief “that this isn’t real, that I’m not really going home … until I was completely convinced that none of this was real,” Emerson said.
As the Alaska Airlines plane headed toward San Francisco, Emerson’s condition worsened, he said. He turned to a friend, who texted him a breathing exercise. Instead of helping him, Emerson said, the moment his phone read the text message into his ear finally drove him mad.
“Then I dropped the headset and was completely convinced that it wasn’t real and
11-year-old perpetrator
Chell said police have arrested several people in connection with the crime spree, including a suspected perpetrator who is only 11 years old.
“The video shows the 11-year-old using credit cards that were stolen in robberies. Where? In Central Park,” Chell said. “So that’s what we’re targeting.”
Chell said the 11-year-old attacker and several other suspected juvenile offenders recently arrested were among the migrants streaming into the city.
However, not all crimes were the work of roving criminal gangs.
On June 24, a 21-year-old woman sunbathing in the Great Hill section of the park at 1:30 p.m. was attacked by a man who exposed himself and attempted to sexually assault her, police said. The victim managed to fight off the attacker, who fled the scene. A 43-year-old man, whom police identified as Jermaine Longmire, was arrested in the crime and charged with attempted rape and sexual assault, according to police.
Longmire pleaded not guilty to the charges and remains incarcerated at Rikers Island Jail, according to online records.
Chell said the NYPD has a “mandate” to ensure the safety of park visitors.
“We will be deploying numerous resources over the days and weeks until we resolve this issue: from mounted police to bicycle and foot patrols to cars on the road and drones,” Chell said.
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