A pilot who attempted to crash a plane while on magic mushrooms sent an alarming message to his wife before being arrested.

Joseph David Emerson was off-duty when a drug-fuelled change in behaviour cost him his career, and almost his and 83 others’ lives while in the cockpit of an aircraft.

The American has been charged for his actions onboard Alaska Airlines Flight 2059 on 22 October 2023, which was on its way to San Francisco, California from Everett, Washington.

10 months following the horror incident, Emerson spoke to ABC News about the course of events from his point of view.

In a sit-down interview along with his wife Sarah, Emerson explained that he and his friends had taken psychedelic mushrooms on the Friday night, two days before the flight, in commemoration of the death of his best friend, Scott, who had died six years previously.

The Class A drug is known to cause hallucinations and can affect all other senses too, also altering the user’s thinking, sense of time and emotions.

But after feeling unwell on the way to the airport, he got into the cockpit behind the captain and first officer, solely thinking about being home, fearing that he would never make it back.

‘I was fully convinced this isn’t real’

After tricking himself into believing he was trapped in the plane, he started to believe that what he was seeing wasn’t real, and after a text from his friend attempting to calm him down played in his headphones, he lost it.

“That’s kind of where I flung off my headset, and I was fully convinced this isn’t real and I’m not going home,” he said.

The plane’s engines didn’t shut down, and everyone remained safe. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

As the pilots didn’t respond to his odd behaviour, he reacted by reaching for the two red handles in front of him.

“Thinking that I was going to wake up, thinking this is my way to get out of this non-real reality, I reached up and I grabbed them, and I pulled the levers.”

It turned out that these were the engine shut-off controls, which would usually have killed the power and potentially killed all of those onboard, but luckily, they did not do anything.

After this, he was kicked out to the cabin, where he drank straight from a coffee jug and attempted to open the airplane door before being stopped by a flight attendant.

But as she touched his hand, he snapped out of his hallucination and quickly texted his wife while in the air.

He wrote: “I made a big mistake.”

“What’s up? Are you ok?” She asked.

Emerson replied: “I’m not.”

That was the last that Sarah would hear from her husband for days, as Emerson told the flight attendant to handcuff him before he did anything that could cause harm.

Sarah broke down after finding out what happened to her husband. (Sam Sweeney/ABC News)

‘I screamed and I keeled over’

His wife tracked his flight, and found out it had made an emergency landing in Portland, with Sarah completely in the dark for 24 hours until a jail receptionist gave her an unfortunate update.

At the time, Emerson had been charged with 83 counts of attempted murder, one for every passenger on board, though these have since been dropped.

“I walk up to the window and say I’m looking for my husband and he kind of just looked on the computer and typed some things in and then nonchalantly tells me the charges, and I lost it,” Sarah Emerson explained to ABC News.

“I screamed and I keeled over, and I almost fell. They grabbed me and pulled me over because I know what that means. I was in a complete shock.”

Emerson was taken into custody when the plane landed, spending 45 days behind bars before being granted bond, with it taking a full four days from the day he took mushrooms to fully recover and return to normal.

The jail physician told him that he had suffered from a condition called hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (HPPD), which can cause a first-time user of psychedelics to suffer from persistent visual hallucinations or perception issues for several days afterward.

Though he is no longer facing murder charges, Emerson is now facing over 80 state and federal charges, which include 83 counts of reckless endangerment after prosecutors reduced the charges in December.

The pilot that intentionally ‘tried to crash a plane’ with 83 passengers onboard while under the influence has revealed his side of events.

Joseph David Emerson is awaiting trial after being arrested for attempting to crash Alaska Airlines Flight 2059 on 22 October 2023, while in the cockpit.

Following the incident, the 44-year-old was charged with 83 counts of attempted murder and one count of endangering an aircraft on the flight that was en route to San Francisco, California, from Everett, Washington in the US.

Almost a year on from the incident, Emerson has now spoken to ABC News about how things unfolded from his perspective.

Two days before the flight was set to depart, Emerson said he and his friends took psychedelic mushrooms, a Class A drug that can cause hallucinations, in commemoration of his best friend’s death who had died six years earlier.

However, he said that the effects lasted days after taking them and he didn’t feel right when travelling to the airport for his flight.

The pilot said he could only think about being at home with his family, with fears setting in that he would never make it back as he took his seat in the cockpit of the jet.

He said to ABC News: “There was a feeling of being trapped, like, ‘Am I trapped in this airplane and now I’ll never go home?’,” Emerson told ABC News, in an interview near his home in California.

He claims he started to believe that what he was seeing wasn’t real, convincing himself that he was not actually going home as his friend sent him a text saying to do some breathing exercises to calm down.

Emerson thought that he was trapped in the plane, causing him to try and shut the engines down. (Sam Sweeney/ABC News)

He said his phone read the text in his ear, pushing him off the edge: “That’s kind of where I flung off my headset, and I was fully convinced this isn’t real and I’m not going home,

“And then, as the pilots didn’t react to my completely abnormal behavior in a way that I thought would be consistent with reality, that is when I was like, this isn’t real. I need to wake up,” he claimed.

The next 30 seconds were where the problems began.

The off-duty pilot recalled: “There are two red handles in front of my face,

“And thinking that I was going to wake up, thinking this is my way to get out of this non-real reality, I reached up and I grabbed them, and I pulled the levers.”

It turned out that these were the engine shut-off controls, which would have put everyone onboard at danger of death.

“What I thought is, ‘This is going to wake me up’,” he would claim.

“I know what those levers do in a real airplane and I need to wake up from this. You know, it’s 30 seconds of my life that I wish I could change, and I can’t.”

Luckily, the pilots pulled his hands away, bewildered by his behaviour, while Emerson said that ‘the pilot’s physical touch’ snapped him out of it, as he became aware that it was all real.

Speaking of luck, his actions didn’t cause any danger as the engines continued to operate normally, as the pilots booted him out of the cockpit, as he drank directly from a coffee pot and sat in the flight attendants’ jump seat.

The plane’s engines didn’t shut down, and everyone remained safe. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Shortly after though, he then went back to hallucinating, revealing: “At some point I thought maybe this isn’t real, and maybe I can wake myself up by just jumping out, like that freefall feeling that you have.”

And just like that, Emerson grabbed the cabin door lever, attempting to pull it open before a flight attendant stopped him by putting her hand on his, again waking him out of the trip and making him aware that it was all real.

He text his wife during the flight, declaring: “I made a big mistake.”

His wife, Sarah Emerson, replied: “What’s up? Are you ok?”

“I’m not,” Emerson responded.

He quickly asked the flight attendant to handcuff him before he did any more harm, hoping to get help when the plane landed.

Emerson was taken into custody when the plane landed, spending 45 days behind bars before being granted bond, with it taking a full four days from the day he took mushrooms to fully recover and return to normal.

The jail physician told him that he had suffered from a condition called hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (HPPD), which can cause a first-time user of psychedelics to suffer from persistent visual hallucinations or perception issues for several days afterward.

Though he is no longer facing murder charges, Emerson is now facing over 80 state and federal charges, which include 83 counts of reckless endangerment after prosecutors reduced the charges in December.

An off-duty pilot has been accused of ‘trying to crash a plane’ with 80 passengers on board on Sunday night.

The suspect has been charged with 83 counts of attempted murder after chaos unfolded on an Alaska Airlines flight.

He was sitting in the cockpit of the plane behind the captain and the first-officer on 22 October, the airline said in a statement.

Pilots will often ride ‘jump seat’ in a cockpit when traveling in an official capacity or commuting to another airport.

The Alaska Airlines flight had departed from Everett, Washington and was en route to San Francisco, California when the mid-air incident unfolded.

Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

According to officials, the off-duty pilot was sat in the flight deck jump seat when he ‘unsuccessfully attempted to disrupt the operation of the engines’.

The crew onboard Alaska Airlines Flight 2059 reported the incident to air traffic control.

The flight was diverted to Portland, Oregon and the suspect was ‘subdued’ without incident.

In audio recorded by LiveATC.net, the pilot said to Seattle-area air traffic controllers: “We’ve got the guy that tried to shut the engines down out of the cockpit, and he doesn’t sound like he’s causing any issues in the back right now.

“I think he’s subdued. Other than that, we want law enforcement as soon as we get on the ground and are parked.”

Joseph David Emerson, 44, was arrested by Portland Police after the flight landed.

The FBI and the Port of Portland Police Department are now investigating the incident, Alaska Airlines said.

Julian Elliott Photography/Getty Images

A statement from the company added: “All passengers on board were able to travel on a later flight.

“We are grateful for the professional handling of the situation by the Horizon flight crew and appreciate our guests’ calm and patience throughout this event.”

The FBI has said it ‘can assure the traveling public there is no continuing threat related to this incident’.

As well as the charges of attempted murder, the off-duty pilot also faces 83 counts of reckless endangerment and one count of endangering an aircraft, according to Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office booking records.

Passengers on the plane eventually took off from Portland at 7.18pm, around the time the flight had originally been due to land in San Francisco.

The Federal Aviation Administration reassured US air carriers on Monday that the incident was ‘not connected in any way shape or form to current world events’.

The transcript revealing the last words of the pilots of the passenger jet that tragically crashed and killed everyone on board has been revealed.

Investigators have discovered the plane’s black box, meaning that the ‘full transcript’ from the voice recorder of the VoePass aircraft that crashed on Friday (9 August) is now accessible.

The plane was carrying 62 people, believed to be 58 passengers and four crew members, as it was travelling from Cascavel, in Parana to Guarulhos, in São Paulo.

It was reported that the aircraft crashed in the residential area of Vinhedo, home to over 80,000 people, with São Paulo’s fire brigade rushing to the city shortly after the incident – luckily, nobody on the ground was injured.

Footage of the crash was uploaded to social media. (X)

It was later revealed that, according to flight tracking site Flightradar24, the ATR-72 turboprop plane left Cascavel at 11:56 local time, giving its last signal approximately an hour and a half later.

The site also found that the flight was flying at 17,000 feet before it crashed, and a ‘severe icing’ warning had been sent out at an altitude between 12,000 feet and 21,000 feet.

According to Sky News, icing issues can reduce an aircraft’s thrust, therefore decreasing its lift and increasing its drag – two things you don’t want happening in mid-air.

One passenger on board sent a selfie to her parents before take-off, sharing her concern at the ‘old plane’ that had her feeling ‘afraid of this flight’, before the aircraft’s fatal crash.

Footage shared online shows the plane descending at speed, not in an expected nosedive, but rather spinning completely out of control before crashing.

The plane horrifically spun out of control before its tragic end. (X)

The reason behind its crash is still unknown, though uncovering the aircraft’s black box is said to have revealed what the pilots allegedly said before the tragic incident.

According to the transcript, both the pilot and copilot noticed a steep loss in altitude just one minute before the crash, as per local TV station Globo, who cited unnamed people from the investigation on Wednesday (14 August).

The two-hour recording reportedly revealed that copilot Humberto de Campos Alencar e Silva asked pilot Danilo Santos Romano: “What is going on?”

Silva also allegedly said that the plane needed ‘more power’ to stabilise the aircraft.

Following the crash, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in a video via CNN: “I would like everyone to stand up so that we can observe a minute of silence because a plane has just crashed in the city of Vinhedo, in São Paulo, with 58 passengers and four crew members and it appears they all died.”

Pilot Danilo Santos Romano. (LinkedIn)

The director of operations for VoePass, Marcelo Moura, shared that even though there was an ice warning in place, the aircraft was in an acceptable window.

A full statement on the matter from VoePass said: “The aircraft took off from Cascavel-PR bound for Guarulhos Airport, with 58 passengers and four crew members on board. VOEPASS has taken all measures to support those involved.

“There is still no confirmation of how the accident occurred or the current situation of the people on board. The Company is providing support via telephone at 0800 9419712, available 24 hours a day, providing information to all its passengers, family members and employees.”

LADbible has contacted the Brazilian Air Force for comment.

Police have revealed text messages from Matthew Perry’s doctor, who has since been charged in connection with the actor’s death last year.

A press conference was held today (15 August) led by US attorney Martin Estrada.

Dr Salvador Plasencia contacted Dr Mark Chavez, who had operated a ketamine clinic, to obtain ketamine to sell to the Friends star, according to the press release from the Department of Justice.

According to the indictment today, Plasencia had learned of Perry’s interest in ketamine back in September 2023 and contacted Chavez, who previously operated a ketamine clinic, to obtain ketamine to sell to the 54-year-old.

The investigation around Perry’s death has been outlined to the public (Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for GQ)

In the text messages to Chavez, Plasencia allegedly talked about how much to charge Perry for the ketamine, saying, “I wonder how much this moron will pay”, later adding: “Lets [sic] find out.”

An autopsy had determined that Perry had died as a combined result of drowning and ketamine use – with his death being initially reported as accidental.

The Los Angeles Police Department had previously said they had been working with federal authorities in a criminal investigation since May to investigate where the ketamine Perry had consumed came from.

He reportedly used it as a treatment for depression and anxiety.

But the medical examiner said that the ketamine in Perry’s system ‘could not be from that infusion therapy’ because his last session took place more than a week before his death.

Perry died in October last year (David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images)

In a press conference today, attorney Martin Estrada said that there had been a ‘broad underground criminal network responsible for distributing large quantities of ketamine to Mr Perry and others’.

“This network included a live-in assistant, various go-betweens, two medical doctors and a major source of drug supply known as ‘the ketamine queen’,” he said.

Jasveen Sangha and Dr Salvador Plasencia have been accused of working with others to distribute ketamine to the actor from September to October 2023.

They distributed approximately 20 vials of ketamine to Perry in exchange for $55,000 (£42,800) in cash, authorities said.

When speaking about Plasencia and Sangha, known as ‘The Ketamine Queen’, Estrada added: “These defendants cared more about profiting off of Mr. Perry than caring for his well-being.”

Perry will always be remembered as Chandler Bing on Friends. (NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)

DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said: “Today we announce charges brought against the five individuals who, together, are responsible for the death of Matthew Perry,

“We allege each of the defendants played a key role in his death by falsely prescribing, selling, or injecting the ketamine that caused Matthew Perry’s tragic death. Matthew Perry’s journey began with unscrupulous doctors who abused their position of trust because they saw him as a payday, to street dealers who gave him ketamine in unmarked vials,” she explained.

The three other defendants, who were charged seperately to Sangha and Plasencia, are:

• Eric Fleming, 54, who pleaded guilty on August 8 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death.
• Kenneth Iwamasa, 59, who conspired with Sangha, Fleming, and Plasencia to illegally obtain ketamine and distribute it to Perry. He pleaded guilty on August 7 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death, admitted to repeatedly injecting Perry with ketamine without medical training, including several on the day that Perry died.
• Dr. Mark Chavez, a physician who has agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine.