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.

Last year, a miracle story was shared following the disappearance of a pilot in the Amazon rainforest after his plane crashed into some trees.

Otavio Augusto Munhoz da Silva miraculously survived a whole 13 days stranded on his own.

But he has now tragically died in a second Amazon plane crash.

This not-as-lucky incident happened on Monday 28 August near the border of Venezuela.

According to authorities, the 38-year-old crashed in the city of Pacaraima, in a forested area.

Munhoz da Silva was a private pilot and the aircraft crashed in Mucajaí, Roraima, northern Brazil.

G1 reports that his sister reported him missing on Friday, 1 September.

And after a large search effort was launched, Jam Press reports his body was found on the same day authorities were alerted.

Jam Press

The pilot’s cousin, Alexandre Munhoz, told local media the man’s body was underwater for a long five days before he was found dead.

It’s also said that his mother is now ‘suffering a lot’ as she processes the sudden loss of her son.

A private pilot, Munhoz da Silva’s family says he worked a lot with air taxis, ferrying around passengers in the region of Boa Vista.

This tragic death comes only a year after he crashed his plane in September 2022.

CNN Brazil reported he had been piloting a private jet when the vessel overheated and the engine stopped working.

Munhoz da Silva then attempted to land his aircraft in a nearby river but ended up stuck in the canopy of a tree.

The pilot spent a long 13 days walking through the dense forest before being found.

Jam Press

Getting to the end of his tether with the crazy ordeal, he luckily found a jungle river and traced its course when a passing vessel spotted him on 27 September.

His aircraft was found two days after.

At the time, his mother was confident he ‘could survive’ and said: “I knew he would resist because he used to carry a bag with medicine and food.

“But prayers sustained my son. I don’t even know how many people prayed for him. I’m relieved, very happy with this news.”

Once he had recovered from the crash, Munhoz da Silva returned to the air and continued with his work – leading to his death.

The pilot is set to be buried in his hometown of Londrina, Paraná.

The Civil Police have opened an investigation into this year’s fatal incident.

Just 30 years ago, one of the most tragic aviation tragedies in history occurred, all because the pilot let his children into the cockpit.

Shortly after midnight on 23 March, 1994, Aeroflot Flight 593 was set to depart Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow, Russia towards Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong.

On board, there were 63 passengers and 12 flight crew, who were captained by Andrew Viktorovich Danilov, a Russian pilot who had worked for Aeroflot since 1992.

He was an experienced pilot, with over 9,500 hours of flight time, including 950 hours in the A310 – the same model used for Aeroflot Flight 593.

He was joined by first officer Igor Vasilyevich Piskaryov with 5,885 hours of flight time, and relief captain Yaroslav Vladimirovich Kudrinsky with 8,940 hours.

The plane took off with no drama, and began its journey.

Captain Kudrinsky’s two children were on their first international trip with their father, and were both invited onto the flight deck to see where he worked during the flight.

The aircraft was flying on autopilot at this time as it cruised towards its final destination, with the majority of its 63 passengers asleep.

The plane was en-route to Hong Kong. (Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

At 00:43, Kudrinsky’s daughter, 13, sat in her father’s seat, manually adjusting the autopilot’s heading setting so it made her feel like she was ‘flying’ the plane.

At 00:51, Kudrinsky let his son, 15 – for reasons unknown – essentially take control of the plane, possibly believing that because autopilot was controlling the aircraft, the 15-year-old’s actions would have no effect.

At 00:54, the teenager manipulated the control stick for over 30 seconds with inputs up to 10 kilograms, which contradicted the input made by the autopilot to keep the aircraft stable and straight, which then changed the flight control settings to manual.

Nobody onboard realised that he was in control of the aircraft but when autopilot tried to regain control, it conflicted with the boy’s controls, which had increased to inputs of 12 and 13 kg.

Eventually, this led to the disconnection of the autopilot servo from the aileron control linkage.

The pilots missed a non-audible warning light, as they had mostly flown Russian-built aircraft and were unfamiliar with the Airbus setup.

The aircraft then entered a bank, with the autopilot unable to maintain altitude due to the angle of the wings.

Captain Kudrinsky then ordered the co-pilot to take control as he got his son away from his seat so he could take command of the aircraft.

The plane lost control and eventually crashed, killing everyone onboard. (Youtube/FatalBreakdown)

After re-adjusting his seat due to auto-pilot settings, the bank angle had increased to 90 degrees, with the A310 unable to turn from such a steep angle.

With the pilots left to fend for themselves, they managed to recover the aircraft’s dive, though over corrected and sent the plane into an almost vertical climb, stalling and sending it into a spin.

It began to lose altitude, and eventually descended beneath the minimum safe altitude for the flight at the section of its route over mountainous terrain.

At 00:59, air traffic control in nearby Novokuznetsk were waiting for a position update through radio transmission from the flight, but it never came, as the flight stopped appearing on their radar screens.

It turns out that at 00:58, just two minutes and six seconds after the events unfolded, Flight 593 crashed in a flat altitude at high vertical speed, estimated to be around 160mph, in the Kuznetsk Alatau Mountain range in the Kemerovo Oblast region of southern Russia.

The aircraft was destroyed, killing everyone onboard.

Despite Aeroflot initially denying that the pilots were at fault, it was forced to change its account of events when a leaked copy of the cockpit voice recorder transcript was published.