DISTRESSING

Wife of Alaska Airlines Pilot in State of Shock After Hubby Allegedly Tried to Cut Engines

“This is not my Joe,” Joseph Emerson’s spouse said.

The wife of an Alaska Airlines pilot accused of attempting to shut down the engines of an aircraft during a commercial flight said Thursday that she was in a state of shock over his arrest. Prosecutors say Joseph Emerson sought to kill everyone on board a Horizon Air flight on Sunday when he tried to engage an emergency fire suppression system while riding in the cockpit jump seat as an off-duty pilot. After attending her husband’s first appearance in federal court in Portland, Oregon, Sarah Stretch said she knew her husband had struggled with depression. “This is not my Joe,” she told reporters. “He never would’ve knowingly done any of that,” Stretch said, adding: “That is not the man that I married.” Emerson, who has pleaded not guilty to 83 counts of attempted murder and other charges, allegedly told police he’d suffered a nervous breakdown, hadn’t slept for 40 hours, and had tried magic mushrooms for the first time around 48 hours before the flight.