Joseph Emerson “looked dead in the eyes”: Passenger recounts horror flight

A passenger on an Alaska Airlines flight on which an off-duty pilot attempted to kill the plane’s engines has recalled how the suspect, Joseph Emerson, “looked dead in the eyes” as he was being escorted off the aircraft by police.

Emerson, 44, had been traveling on the flight deck between Everett, Washington, and San Francisco, California, on Sunday when he “unsuccessfully attempted to disrupt the operation of the engines,” the airline confirmed in a statement on Monday night.

He was detained at the back of the Horizon Air flight—a subsidiary of Alaska Airlines—by members of the crew, and the plane made a safe emergency landing in Portland, Oregon, where Emerson was arrested.

He has since been charged with 83 counts of attempted murder, the number of people on board, as well as other charges, including endangering an aircraft, booking records show.

“The flight attendant got on [the] loudspeaker and seemed very frazzled, and she said: ‘We’re having a situation, everyone’s safe, but we’re going to need to emergency land this plane,'” Aubrey Gavello, a real estate agent in San Francisco, told Portland broadcaster KATU News.

“We landed and then about 10 police officers, armed, came on, walked straight to the back of the plane where I was sitting and detained him and walked the gentleman off the plane,” she added. “He looked dead in the eyes, almost.”

Alex Wood, another passenger, told ABC News that the pilot had announced “a disturbance in the cockpit,” but added: “It was very professional, handled very calmly, and we didn’t really know what was going on until we landed.”

Alaska Airlines said Emerson, of Pleasant Hill in northern California, had engaged a fire suppression system designed to cut fuel supply to the engines, each of which is individually controlled by a T-handle. “In this case, the quick reaction of our crew to reset the T-handles ensured engine power was not lost,” it said.

It said that Emerson had first joined the company as a first officer in 2001, before leaving for another airline which was later acquired by Alaska Airlines. In 2019, he became a captain for the carrier. Alaska Airlines said Emerson had completed medical certifications throughout his career and “at no point were his certifications denied, suspended or revoked.”

The FBI field office in Portland confirmed that it was now investigating the incident, adding in a statement that it “can assure the traveling public that there is no continuing threat related to this incident.”

Newsweek approached the FBI’s Portland field office via telephone for further information on Tuesday.

At present, Emerson’s motivations remains unclear. According to ABC, the Federal Aviation Authority told carriers that the incident was “not connected in any way shape or form to current world events.”

Emerson is said to have remained subdued after being escorted by the crew from the flight deck of the plane. The passengers were later able to complete their journey with a new plane and crew, Alaska Airlines said.