Per court documents, a pilot who was off-duty was accused of attempting to crash an Alaska Airlines jet. He claims that he believed he was experiencing a nervous breakdown.
Joseph David Emerson also informed the police that he had consumed psychedelic mushrooms and was feeling very sad.
Mr Emerson said he didn’t do 83 counts of trying to kill people in an Oregon court on Tuesday.
He was sitting in the front of the plane with the captain when the supposed incident happened on Sunday.
According to the documents, Mr. Emerson said he was not feeling well and then reached for the handles to stop something.
If he had succeeded, a system that puts out fires in the engines of jets would have turned on and stopped the fuel from flowing.
The written complain says that a pilot had to struggle with Mr. Emerson until he stopped fighting and was guided out of the cockpit. The whole event took around a minute and a half.
After being controlled, Mr. Emerson warned the flight attendants that they should handcuff him immediately or else something bad would happen. He then attempted to access the emergency exit handle while the plane was descending, according to the documents.
During the interview with the police, Mr. Emerson said he had a “nervous breakdown” and didn’t sleep for 40 hours.
“He said that he pulled both emergency shut off handles because he thought he was dreaming and just wanted to wake up. ” I didn’t feel good. It looked like the pilots weren’t paying attention to what was happening. They didn’t feel like it was the right thing to do.
I’m confessing to my actions. “I am not contesting any accusations that you want to bring against me, my friends,” he said.
A person from the US Attorney’s Office told the BBC that they are still trying to find out if Mr. Emerson was under the direct influence of a psychedelic substance during that time.
Besides the accusations of trying to kill someone, Mr. Emerson is also accused of endangering people in 83 different instances and putting an aircraft in danger.
It was then sent to Portland, Oregon.
In an audio recording of pilots talking to air traffic control, one of the pilots said, “We have the person who tried to turn off the engines out of the front cabin, and he doesn’t seem to be causing any problems in the back of the plane right now. ”
The pilot said, “I believe he is calm and quiet. ” He asked for the police to be there right when we land and stop the car.
A passenger named Aubrey Gavello said that everyone on the plane didn’t know there was a problem until the flight attendant said they had to land right away because of a medical emergency.
Ms Gavello said that a flight attendant told the suspect that everything will be fine and they will help them get off the plane.
“She said she genuinely believed it was a severe medical crisis. ”
Another person on the plane said that the situation was dealt with well and the passengers didn’t know there was a problem.
On Monday, the Federal Aviation Administration told US airlines that the incident was not related to current world events at all.
The FBI said on Monday that they are looking into a situation. They also want to let people know that they have no reason to worry about any ongoing danger related to this incident.