NO CONTEST

Alaska Airlines Pilot Who Tried to Cut Plane’s Engines Midflight Pleads Guilty

Joseph Emerson was high on mushrooms on the night of the fateful flight.

Ex-Alaska Airlines pilot Joseph Emerson will plead no contest to charges related to an October 2023 incident in which he tried to cut the engines of a Horizon Air flight while he was high on mushrooms. Emerson’s attorney, Noah Horst, told CBS News that his client has agreed to the plea in order to atone for his actions and hopefully avoid a harsher sentence. Emerson was coming down from a harrowing experience with psychedelic mushrooms that he’d taken days prior, and had not slept in more than 40 hours when he began the flight from Washington to San Francisco. In the cockpit jumpseat behind the pilot and first officer, Emerson grabbed two red handles that would have activated the plane’s fire suppression system and cut off fuel to its engines. He was subdued by flight crew the plane landed safely in Portland. Emerson faces up to a year in prison, 664 hours of community service, and over $60,000 in restitution.