PeterRS Posted 2 hours ago Posted 2 hours ago Joseph Emerson was an off-duty pilot hitching a ride in the jump seat of a Horizon Air flight from Everett Washington to San Francisco. There were 84 on board. He admitted in court that he had not splept for about 40 hours and had taken the drug psilocybin (known as magic mushrooms) around 48 hours prior to boarding the aircraft. He claimed he was also suffering from depression. He informed the court that he was aware he should not have been flying! Yet there he was in the cockpit jump seat. Suddenly, early in the the flight, he tried to cut off power to the engines. It took the cockpit crew around 90 seconds to restrain Emerson. Moved to the passenger cabin - After being subdued, Emerson said to flight attendants: "You need to cuff me right now or it's going to be bad" and later tried to reach for the emergency exit handle during the plane's descent. One flight attendant told investigators they had observed Emerson saying "I messed everything up" and that he "tried to kill everybody". The aircraft made an emergency landing at Portland and no one was hurt. The incident happened in October 2023 and came to court in September. By then Emerson had spent 50 days in jail. Depite the fact that his rogue actions could have seriously endangered the aircraft, the District Court judge ordered that he serve no more jail time, instead sentencing him to 5 years of problation, 664 hours of community service and a fine of $60,569. Amazingly, she also told the court - "Pilots are not perfect. They are human," Judge Amy Baggio said. "They are people and all people need help sometimes." Emerson had admitted guilt and apologised. Yet I find it totally unbelievable that the judge in this case did not consider these actions of a man who was a pilot particularly severe and failed to sentence him to prison for up to 20 years as allowed by Federal law.. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0kp6j5n68do https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/former-pilot-tried-cut-engines-flight-taking-magic-mushrooms-pleads-gu-rcna229490 Ruthrieston 1 Quote
vinapu Posted 7 minutes ago Posted 7 minutes ago 1 hour ago, PeterRS said: Yet I find it totally unbelievable that the judge in this case did not consider these actions of a man who was a pilot particularly severe and failed to sentence him to prison for up to 20 years as allowed by Federal law.. because justice system has not much to do with justice Quote
