New audio from the cockpit of an Alaska Airlines plane captures the moment a paranoid, drug-addled pilot lunged at the safety levers in a bid to down the plane mid-flight. Horizon Flight 2059 was headed from Everett, Washington, to San Francisco, California, in October 2023 with off-duty pilot Joseph Emerson in the jumpseat. Newly released audio details the moment he made a beeline for the fire suppression levers, in an effort to stop the plane’s engines. “I’m not okay, I gotta get home,” he told the pilot, who sounded puzzled. A fracas then broke out, and the pilot radioed for help. “It’s Horizon 2059. We got a jump seater, just tried to shut our engines off, we need to go direct to Portland now,” he can be heard telling air traffic controllers in the audio. Emerson later told police at Portland International Airport that he was in the throes of a mental breakdown. He said he hadn’t slept in 48 hours and had taken psychedelic mushrooms. “I was trying to wake up. Cause I don’t feel like this is real,” he told cops. He was sentenced to time served and three years of supervised release, and later founded a charity focused on mental health among pilots.
Read it at ABC 7
