![]() ![]() “An off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot was booked into jail on 83 attempted murder charges after he allegedly tried to shut off the engines of a SF-bound plane.” Īlaska Airlines’ statement didn’t identify Emerson but said “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.”Īlaska Airlines said the incident is being investigated by law enforcement authorities, including the FBI and the Port of Portland Police Department. I was on this flight last night w/ my 2 kids □. “I’m kind of just in shock,” Verrilli posted, thanking the airline crew for “an incredible job.” After they landed, she recalled hearing crew explain that there was a “disturbance in the cockpit” and a “mental breakdown” and that police then escorted a handcuffed man off the plane who offered no resistance. “The plane is ok, but we’re having an issue,” Verrilli recalled the flight attendant saying. Jessica Verrilli, of San Francisco, flying with her toddler and infant children, said in a social media post on X that a flight attendant appeared “visibly worried” as she announced that “we need to emergency land.” The incident rattled Bay Area travelers who were on board. “You know what those are for, and you don’t touch them, you don’t get anywhere close.” “Any pilot knows what those handles are for, even if they don’t fly that particular airplane,” Aimer said. If just one engine was suddenly shut off, however, the aircraft would have lurched to one side from the thrust imbalance, and the pilots would have struggled to regain control, he said.Īimer said it would be hard to imagine an innocent explanation for Emerson’s alleged behavior. If they were at normal cruising altitude, they would have been able to glide the aircraft with no power for about 20 minutes and about 100 miles to a safe landing spot. Shutting both engines off at once at least would have given the pilots a chance to maintain control of the aircraft while attempting to restart them, Aimer said. Ross “Rusty” Aimer, a retired United Airlines pilot and president of Aero Consulting Experts, said that “it would have been disastrous had he managed to do what he intended to do.” The FAA, in an alert to airlines, said the jump-seat passenger had tried to disable the engines by deploying the engine fire-suppression system. “Other than that, we want law enforcement as soon as we get on the ground and parked.” “He doesn’t sound like he’s causing any issue in the back right now, and I think he’s subdued,” the pilot continued. In an exchange recorded by, one of the pilots calmly told air traffic controllers that “we’ve got the guy that tried to shut the engines down out of the cockpit.” We really send our love and support to them.” “He’s everything you would want to have in a good neighbor. “We are devastated at the news,” Yee said. But stunned neighbors said they saw nothing amiss in him. Monday, no one answered and the shades were drawn at Emerson’s tidy gray home with white trim, whimsically decorated for Halloween with tombstones, ghosts, skeletons, giant spiders and a “Beware” sign. According to Alaska Airlines, which owns Horizon Air, Emerson “unsuccessfully attempted to disrupt the operation of the engines,” the pilot and copilot “quickly responded, engine power was not lost and the crew secured the aircraft without incident.” The aircraft was diverted to the Portland airport. There was nothing about Alaska Airlines pilot Joseph David Emerson that suggested a simmering cauldron of rage or despair that might drive a seemingly successful and happy Pleasant Hill family man to allegedly jeopardize dozens of innocent lives on a full flight Sunday from Seattle to San Francisco.īut authorities said that’s exactly what happened.Įmerson, 44, was being held Monday on 83 counts each of attempted murder and reckless endangerment and one count of endangering an aircraft, according to the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office in Oregon, where the plane landed safely after Emerson was removed from the cockpit.Įmerson, who is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday, was off-duty on Sunday and riding in an extra “jump seat” in the cockpit of Horizon Air flight 2059, an Embraer 175 that left Everett, Washington, at 5:23 p.m. ![]()
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