What Penalty for Trying To Crash a Passenger Plane?

[PeterRS]

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

[vinapu]

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 

[Pete1111]

He will never see the inside of a cockpit again, but did the FAA take any preventive actions to reduce risk this might happen again?  

My sense is passengers creating drama in flight don't see much incarceration.   What kind of message does that send?

 

 

[unicorn]

5 hours ago, PeterRS said:

... 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...

If not to prison, at least to a rehab center and/or mental health facility. What an odd dollar figure...

[PeterRS]

2 hours ago, unicorn said:

If not to prison, at least to a rehab center and/or mental health facility. What an odd dollar figure...

Sorry but I cannot agree. If an off-duty pilot for whatever reason delibrately reaches for levers to cut power to the engines and later delierately to reach for a door exit lever and then tell airline staff "I tried to kill everybody.", he deserves to be in prison for quite some considerable time. He knew he had done wrong. He took the magic mushrooms and he went without sleep for 40 hours. He made those decisions. Had he been successful, 84 including himself might have died.

Mental health treatment could have been concurrent with his prison time. But for him to serve just 50 days is, in my view, utter madness.

Remember the "Miracle on the Hudson"? The FAA spent a lot of time and effort to prove that Captain Sullenberg had done wrong and could easily have reached Teterboro Airport. Thankfully he was proved 100% correct in what he did. This pilot faced no such investigation as far as I am aware - and he certainly should have.

[unicorn]

I don't know enough about the case to be able to say whether he's simply nuts or simply an evil person. If he's not nuts, I agree with you that a substantial prison sentence would have been advisable. I think everyone would agree that he should never be able to fly an airplane again, and even that he should need to go through a substance abuse program in order to earn his license to operate a motor vehicle back.