Pilot Accused of Sabotage: I Thought It Was a Dream

The Alaska Airlines pilot accused of trying to bring down one of his company's planes mid-flight has given his first interview since the incident, during which he tells the New York Times he was in a kind of hallucinogenic dream. Joseph Emerson said he felt increasingly disoriented while sitting in the cockpit as a guest passenger and wanted to bring the disturbing sensation to end. That's when he grabbed the jet's pair of fire-suppression handles. "I thought it would stop both engines, the plane would start to head towards a crash, and I would wake up," he tells the Times from a jail in Portland, Oregon, where he remains held without bond. Emerson faces 83 counts of attempted murder.

Confirming earlier reports, the 44-year-old said he took magic mushrooms days before the flight while at a memorial for a late friend. It was his first time, and Emerson said he began spiraling that night. "I felt fearful of them," he said, referring to the friends he was with. And "I started to have this feeling that this wasn't real." The newspaper notes that research has suggested psychedelics can have "prolonged" effect on some people, particularly those prone to some kind of psychotic disorder. Emerson had never been diagnosed with such a disorder, but a therapist had recently suggested he seek treatment for possible depression as he continued to grapple with the 2018 death of a close friend, the same friend whose memorial he had just attended.

The story points out the resulting conundrum for Emerson and other pilots: Reaching out for help for a mental health problem could cost them their jobs. Reuters notes that the FAA took a step this week to potentially ease that situation by creating a committee on the mental health of pilots. One of its missions will be to address the barriers that prevent pilots from seeking help. "I am horrified that those actions put myself at risk and others at risk," Emerson tells the Times. "That crew got dealt a situation there's no manual, checklist or procedure that's been written for. And they did an exemplary job keeping me and the rest of the people on that plane safe." (Passengers are suing over the flight.)