Crime Weekly - S3 Ep153: Crime Weekly News: Pilot Attempts to Turn Off Engines During Flight and Is Charged With Murder

Episode Date: October 26, 2023

***UPDATE: Michelle has been found!*** 44 year-old Joseph David Emerson faces 83 counts of attempted murder along with 83 counts of reckless endangerment and one count of endangering an aircraft after being accused of trying to shut off the engines on a full plane of passengers on Sunday, October 22nd. Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

You know where your business would be without you. Imagine where it could go with more of you. Well, with Wix, you can create a website with more of your vision, your voice, your expertise. Wix gives you the freedom to truly own your brand and do it on your own. With full customization and advanced AI tools that help turn your ideas into reality. Grow your business into your online brand. Because without you, your business is just business as usual. Go to Wix.com. No offense, but your brain is a terrible place to keep your big

idea. It belongs in the world, but you know that already. You have a calling, a voice that says, this is what I'm meant to do. Create the website your big idea deserves with Wix. Make it your own with top to bottom customization, AI to help realize your vision, and built-in business tools to turn your daydream into your dream job. Wix supports every stage of the business journey except one. Your decision to begin. Ready? Go to Wix.com. Hey everyone, welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Levasseur. And I'm Stephanie Harlow. And we're here with another episode and it's going to be a crazy one. One of my biggest fears.

We'll get into it in a second. But before we do, we have an important message that we want to pass along to you from our editor, who is also a friend of ours, Shannon. One of her friend's sisters has been missing. She just sent me over a text and asked me to share it with you guys. So, Shannon, throw that photo up on the screen here, and I'll read this off. Michelle Giselle Lopez. She's 5'3", 140 pounds, brown eyes, brown hair, 15 years old. She was last seen at Downtown Magnets High School on Thursday, October 12, 2023 at around 3 p.m.

She's highly introverted. It's very out of character for her not to return home or make contact with her family members. If you have any information or have seen her, please call or text the numbers that we're going to have on the screen right here, but I'll read them if you're listening on audio. It's 323-207-5989 or 323-316-4384. We talk about these cases a lot. The family knows this individual. If they're saying this is out of the ordinary for her, we have to believe them. If you know something, say something. Even if you think it's just trivial information, pass it along to law enforcement. Let's find her

immediately. We hope that she is okay. Yeah. And I just looked it up actually, downtown Magnets High School is in Los Angeles. so she went missing from the los angeles area uh so specifically those of you who are in that area or around keeping an extra close eye out for her absolutely we're thinking of them hopefully you can find her soon if we get an update we'll definitely let you guys know okay so diving into this week's episode this is some news that just came out a couple days ago i did see see it briefly. And then when you brought it up again, I was like, yep, I saw that one. I wish I hadn't. So for anyone who hadn't heard, 44-year-old Joseph David Emerson faces 83 counts of attempted murder, along with 83 counts of reckless endangerment and one count of endangering an aircraft

after being accused of trying to shut off the engines on a full plane of passengers on Sunday, October 22nd. So only two days ago, you were saying this was Alaskan Airlines. I don't know the specifics of it. So I'm as interested in this conversation as everybody else is because it's going to make me even more nervous about flying, but let's get right into it. Just upgrade my fears. Dude, same. The reason it stood out to me was because I'm afraid. Yeah. I mean, 36,000 feet in the air in a metal can. Shouldn't everybody be afraid? I always sit in the plane and I'm like,

this thing shouldn't be up here. I don't understand the science behind it. I don't know how this big, heavy thing is just floating through the air i'm super nervous about it and now you've got the addition of just random people in the car i mean he wasn't around a person he was a pilot but that was not his flight you know how sometimes they let like pilots who are catch a ride traveling for work or if they're going from airport to airport they can catch a ride they'll sit in the cockpit with uh with the pilot and and this random pilot who's not even flying the plane is in the cockpit messing with stuff. So authorities say that off-duty pilot, who is Joseph David Emerson, he was taken into custody following a disturbance on a Horizon Airlines flight, which was headed

to San Francisco from Everett, Washington. Obviously, after this happened, the plane had to be diverted and it landed in Portland around 6.30 p.m. Reportedly, what happened is he was sitting in the jump seat, as pilots sometimes do, even though that's not their official flight. And at first, the pilot was like, yeah, he was engaging in small talk with us, talking about the weather. And then all of a sudden, Emerson said, I'm not OK. And one of the pilots turned to see him reaching for the fire handles. So apparently, Emerson tried to grab and pull two red fire handles that would have activated the plane's emergency fire suppression system, which what was that going to do? It was going to cut the fuel to the plane's engines.

That's right. So a struggle ensues, you know, right? Between Emerson and the pilot and the first officer. They're able to wrestle him away. Thank God for their quick reaction. What if he said, I'm not okay? And they were like, yeah, dude, me neither. That's what I would have said. I would have been like, you and me both, man.

I would have looked back. And luckily, this pilot did. He stopped him. But then Emerson walked out of the cockpit calmly. Court documents claim that when he was walking to the back of the plane, Emerson told the flight attendant, you need to cuff me right now or it's going to be bad. And then again, during the plane's descent, Emerson was restrained but still tried to grab the handle of an emergency exit before being stopped by the flight attendant. So at first, when this was being reported, I was like, what the hell happened? Like, this seems like something purposeful. This seems like something you would do if you were definitely trying to take down a plane of 80 people, right? Like, it seems like an act of terrorism, right? It doesn't feel like something a person in their right mind would do. And recently, it was revealed, today actually, that Emerson had admitted to investigators that he'd ingested psychedelic mushrooms for the first time before boarding the plane and he had not slept in over 40 hours.

He said, quote, I didn't feel okay. It seemed like the pilots weren't paying attention to what was going on. They didn't, it didn't seem right. End quote. He said he pulled the emergency handles because he thought he was dreaming and he just wanted to wake up. He also said that he would not resist any charges that were brought against him. And I respect that. I don't, I mean, I don't know. I don't know. This is a rough one for me. I feel bad for him because if you look at his life and his career, it's pretty much spotless. He's been great. medical certificate, which is the highest level of medical certificate award to pilots. It requires exams every six months for pilots 40 and over. He'd worked in aviation for over 20 years. He seemed to be a good pilot. But yeah, he took these mushrooms,

I guess, for the first time. And he did so, I think, assuming he wasn't going to have to fly the plane so he could just chill. I don't know why you would take mushrooms and then be in the cockpit of a plane. That would freak me out. So yeah, that's sometimes what mushrooms can do, right? They can make you feel like things are happening that are not happening. And so you probably in that state of mind would not want to be in the cockpit of a plane that's flying over 80 people, like thousands and hundreds of thousands feet up in the air. It's just not something you want to do. And Alaska Airlines has said that Emerson was removed from service indefinitely and relieved from all duties at Alaska Airlines. Yeah, I don't

know. It's bad news. Running a business is hard work. Building your website shouldn't be. With Wix, you can express your ideas, give direction, then leave the heavy lifting to AI. From site creation to branded content and images. Have fun with the details. Customize what you want the way you want.

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tools that help turn your ideas into reality. Grow your business into your online brand. Because without you, your business is just business as usual. Go to Wix.com. Well, I definitely, this will all play out, right? I definitely think if the guy has a, if he's taken any type of psychedelic like that, that's probably not someone you want flying a plane, clearly not making the right decisions. I will say, and the people on the plane might feel differently, obviously the passengers on the plane. But I do think there's going to be some consideration of intent, right? Was the intent to stop the plane or was it to kill everyone on board? And if they're going to lean towards he thought he was in a dream and he just wanted to wake up, well, we all know this. I mean, I'm not teaching anybody here this, but there's a big difference between first degree murder and manslaughter, right? You can carry out a reckless act that can result in death where you still go to prison for

a decent amount of time, but it's not first degree murder. If his intent, if he didn't say before pulling those handles, like I'm taking everybody with me or something along some type of spontaneous utterance, I think proving the intent of he was trying to kill everyone on board may be difficult. And also he's been charged with 83 counts of attempted murder, dude. Even the intent of he was trying to kill everyone on board may be difficult. And also, I don't know. He's been charged with 83 counts of attempted murder, dude. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Attempted murder. And I don't think it would be attempted murder.

I think it would be attempted manslaughter. I mean, I don't think it would be. I don't think he intended on killing anybody. He just wanted the plane to stop. And that's the problem. What did he think was going to happen when the plane stopped? He's not in his right state of mind. I know, but I think it would be different if he's just a random passenger, you know?

Well, here's the thing. I was going to weigh in on that because the one thing I was seeing from other pilots, and that's why I don't know how high in the air they were at this point. I feel like they were at cruising altitude. I could be wrong. That's just purely speculation on my part. But one of the pilots was saying that, and again, I don't think that he was thinking this because he wasn't in his right state of mind to begin with. But if those handles are pulled at cruising altitude, there is time to reset them and re-engage the engines. And you can still come out of that no issue, right? Because the plane, when the engines go off, isn't going to just like take a nosedive. It's going to glide, which is crazy. When we think about design, we were talking about at the beginning, like how, how does that happen? I mean, there's no propulsion. How does that happen? But

it's one of those things where if the plane was just taking off, the pilot said, at that point, if you pull those handles when the plane is just in, when it's accelerating up, I guess, what would you call ascending? That's when it can be fatal because there's not enough distance between the plane and the ground. So by the time the pilots would be able to reset that and jumpstart the engines, it's too late. So I do think all those things will be taken into consideration. I feel like if I was on that plane with my daughters, I'd be like, throw the book at them because it doesn't, to me, it wouldn't matter intent. It would matter what the potential consequences were. And you could have killed me and my family. So-

Do you think it'll come into play when, like, cause I don't think he'll ever be a pilot again. Oh no, that's out. That's out. In order to be a pilot flying for a commercial airline, you got to be perfect, in my opinion. There can be no blemishes. That's it. You're responsible for too many people. It's too big of a mistake. Nope. Even a small mistake can be a big mistake up in the air like that.

Even the element of making a decision to get on a plane under that condition by taking those drugs before getting on the plane, that's a problem. We need top-notch people who are squared away, even more squared away than we are, making those decisions for us because they got to be the best of the best. So as far as working as an airline pilot, commercial airline pilot, that is gone. But as far as will he ever be out as a free person again, I'd like to think that he would at some point. And especially if he's going to take accountability for what happened. Do I think he should walk away scot-free? No. Do I think he should do a year in prison? Absolutely not. I think he should do a lot longer than that.

Oh, you think he should do longer? Damn. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I don't know that there's obviously minimum sentence requirements and all this, but just off the top of my head, honestly, I would say 10% of the passengers there. So it was 83 passengers, 8.3 years. Now, that's not how it works, but that's what I would do. Yeah, you just made that up. I just made it up, but it sounded pretty good though, didn't it? Did you say 8.3? 10% of 83. Did you say 8.3 10 of 83 you say 8.3 years 8.3 years that's throw the book at him 8.3 right what how many months does 0.3 translate into

well i would think it would be considered yeah b3 i don't know no it wouldn't i'm not good with it wouldn't because it's 12 months but it's a long time and now if he's in there and he's is he going to serve the full thing? No. But again, that's not how it works depending on what he's charged with. This guy could end up doing 20, 30 years. Damn. If not more.

If he gets found guilty of murder. Some legit murderers have done less. Yeah. I mean, he could do life in prison. For sure. So here's my thing. And I'm not saying this happened. I'm just playing devil's advocate, otherwise known as Derek's advocate.

But let's say. Or Arnie's advocate. Too soon? Too soon. Let's say that he did do it intentionally and he used the mushrooms as an excuse. Right. So they'd have to prove that he had ingested these mushrooms. They'd have to prove when, you know, enough.

They'd have to prove that it was enough time before the flight where it would still be affecting him to that degree at the time that he was sitting in that cockpit. And I think that, you know, they'd have to prove that he was up for 40. Like, why are you up for 40 hours? How much mushrooms are you doing? Or was he flying and then he did the mushrooms? And also, I feel bad for him if this wasn't intentional, because if this was his first time doing it, he probably didn't know what to expect. But also, you're a grown-ass man and a pilot. Don't you think you do your research? I do my research thoroughly on everything. Everything I do, everything I put in my body.

It's exhausting. And I know you're the same way, dude, because we've talked about it before. It's exhausting sometimes that I can't even buy a washer and dryer without doing four and a half months of research, 4.3 months of research, man. Before I'm going to ingest a substance, especially a psychedelic drug, I'm going to spend so much time looking up all the possible things that could go wrong, not only so that I can be prepared, but so that I can understand the correct environment to experiment with that thing. And right. So like I get you want to experiment with drugs. You're a grown ass man.

Go for it, man. Do what you want. But that's not something you want to do. First of all, for the first time, it's not even something you want to do around a bunch of other people. It could go multiple different ways. And you will see stuff. It's a psychedelic. You will see things. And it does not feel like that's the right time. Now, we also don't know the context behind this, right? Maybe he thought he had a couple of weeks, a couple of days off.

He'd been flying for 40 hours straight. He'd been up and he was like, I got a weekend off. Yes, I'm going to go in my hotel room, do some mushrooms and just chill. And then they called him and they were like, we need you in San Francisco stat or we need you wherever stat. And he was like, damn. And he had to get on the plane and he didn't expect to be there. Those things are going to matter to me. Craftsman days are here at Lowe's with big savings on the tools you need.

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Wall Supplies last. Selection varies by location. I agree. And that's why I think right now investigators are or have already started to conduct an investigation regarding the events, his behavior leading up to the incident. Was he making any type of suicidal statements in his phone, through text message? Was he doing internet searches about taking his own life?

Anything that would suggest that he was going through a difficult time in his life where this might've been premeditated, right? This act might've been something that was decided before he ever boarded the plane. And maybe he took the psychedelics to heighten himself up, to psych himself up, to get there, to be able to do it. If you can show a pattern of behavior that shows this was a pre-orchestrated set of circumstances where his intent was to go on there and bring this plane down. Well, then you throw the book at him and he's never to be out on the streets again. However, if like you said, there's a weird set of circumstances where he was flying, he thought he was going to be in his hotel room for the next 24 hours. They needed him to fly a

flight in a couple of days. So he had to get, take this taxi back. He figured, Hey, I'm going to take these things. I'm going to fall asleep. And when I wake up, I'll be there. That could be the case. So if they show in his past that he had no issues with friends or family, he wasn't writing anything or searching anything that would suggest he was thinking about this. I do think if he's willing to take a deal, there's probably going to be a little bit of forgiveness given. There'll probably be a little bit of leniency given, but I definitely think they have to set a precedent. This could have been catastrophic. Yeah. And it could have been premeditated. So they definitely have to rule that out. That's it. They have to rule that out. And even if it's not confirmed that it was

premeditated, but there's some type of plea deal made, there has to be a precedent set where this is something you do once and you never do again. And you're going to lose some freedom because the implications of his actions could have been a lot worse. We're very, very lucky to be here. So I definitely don't think he should be walking free. I mean, we're not. We weren't on the plane. No, right. I mean, that's what I'm saying. People who are on the plane, I'm sure they would feel differently. But that's why when you said we were going to cover this case, I'm really interested. I'm always interested to hear from you guys, but especially this week, because I do feel like it's good.

My guess is that it's going to be very divided. I feel like there's going to be half of you who think like, all right, one to three years for this. And then there's going to be half of you who are saying, nah, man, it's not about what happened. It's about what could have happened. 25 to life. So if you're listening on audio, leave a review, let us know what you think. You can specifically weigh in on this. We read those comments. But if you're watching on YouTube, definitely weigh in in the comments below. What do you think? Should this person be gone for the next 25 years because of a potential mistake or the fact that this could have been premeditated,

even though they can't prove it, they should throw the book at him and he should never be out again. Or like, or I guess I should, I think I said that twice, or should they give him a slap on the wrist and let him out after a year? I don't think that's going to happen, but let us know what you guys think. Yeah. And we'll probably see more information coming out as the story develops. Cause like you said, it just happened. It just happened. Investigators are working this case right now as we speak, right? They have him, he seems like he's cooperative. Now they got to go back and trace, reach trace his steps leading up to the event to see if there was something going on internally that maybe wasn't picked up by some of these tests. Maybe some family members or friends will give better insight and they'll have a better indication of what his

plans were before he entered that plane. That'll ultimately decide, I think, how much time he does. What he's ultimately found guilty of. Because listen, they charge him with murder. Yeah. A lot of murder. A lot of attempted murder. Right. They can't go up. You know? Yeah. They can't go up. So we'll see.

We'll see what happens. And actually, God, this is why I wish sometimes you had an attorney. I mean, the fact that they hadn't charged him with manslaughter initially, can they still add that charge on? I'm sure they can amend it. They might reduce it. But I mean, this endangering an aircraft, that's not going to be reduced. That's not going anywhere. And that's the other thing, right? What's the sentence, that's not going to be reduced. That's not going anywhere.

Because he did that. And that's the other thing, right? Like, what's the sentence for that? Yeah, federal crime? Yeah. He could get, that might be 10 years alone. I don't know. So they could end up dropping the attempted murder charges and saying, hey, we're going to drop these because we don't believe, that's a great point.

We don't believe you tried to kill anybody, but you definitely endangered an aircraft. That's 10 to 15. Federal crime, you're going to do 85 of that minimum it's that could be what it is if such an act endangers or is likely to endanger safety at the airport or attempts or conspires to do such an act shall be fined under this title imprisoned not more than 20 years or both there you go not more than 20 years so they can go that's and that might be how they're getting around this where they're like, hey, we're going to hit you with the highest charge

because I don't think they can amend it to manslaughter after the fact. They're going for a murder charge. You got to charge appropriately. We had this in similar situations with other cases. Casey Anthony,

I believe was one of them where you charge inappropriately and then they walk free because you went, you overshot. So with this one here, they have the murder charges. It could be a situation where they hit

him with the endangering an aircraft. They could give him, like you just said, anywhere from one to 20 years. And because it's a federal crime, he's going to be in a federal prison. He has to do 85% of whatever he's hit with. So he's going to go away for a while. He's going to have some time to think about this one for sure. It actually says, well, this is for piracy. I don't know if they would consider it piracy, but maybe because basically he tried to hijack that aircraft. Mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years. Yeah. Well, he wasn't trying to hijack the plane.

He was trying to stop it. That's what he says. Allegedly. But he did. If he was trying to hijack it, he wouldn't be trying to shut the engines off. He would be trying to take over the plane he was trying to stop it oh that's what he says but we allegedly but he did if he's trying to hijack it he wouldn't be trying to shut the engines off he would be trying to take over the plane well he did that is trying to take over the plane doing anything to the plane that the pilot is not doing or that's not intended to be done is trying to take control of the plane whether you mean to crash into the ground or into a building you're still hijacking the plane you're taking

the plane out of the control of the person who's there to fly the plane. I disagree. I think piracy, you're commandeering a vessel. You're taking over the vessel. He did try to take over the vessel. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Way down in the comments below on that one.

I think I disagree with you there. I think that would be it's got to be one or the other. He was trying to take the plane over to fly it or he was trying to bring the plane down. I don't think it matters one way or the other. He was trying to take the plane over to fly it or he was trying to bring the plane down. I don't think it matters one way or the other. I think it does based on what you're saying. If they charge him with that, I think that's why they didn't charge him with that. What was the charge for that called?

Piracy. They didn't hit him with that. They hit him with endangering an aircraft. But I mean, he's still yes. But I said, I don't know if it's if it's technically piracy, but he still was trying to like take over the aircraft, whether he intended to stop it in midair. I think that's grasping. And that's another thing. He was like, oh, it was like the pilots weren't paying attention.

So how is stopping the engines while you're in flight going to make the situation better? Why wouldn't you just be like, hey, guys, do you want to pay attention there? No, I think that's what it comes down to being on a narcotic where you're like, you're on a drug. You're not thinking in your right mind. It's not a narcotic. It's a psychedelic, dude.

And it's like, and I just don't understand. I don't. So it says interfering with crew members or attendants. Maximum term of 20 years, but no maximum if a dangerous weapon was involved. Yeah. So I think that's what, I think he's looking at one of 20 years but no maximum if a dangerous weapon was involved yeah

so i think that's what i think he's looking at one to 20 years i think that's if they're willing to drop the 83 counts of murder attempted murder attempted it's crazy let us know what you think in the comment section because i'm interested this is a crazy one this is a crazy one future reference don't take psychedelics before a flight or before you drive a car or if you're out in public or. Yeah. Or if you're around me. Especially if it's the first time you might kind of want to see how you react first before you take it to the streets. Yeah, I agree. All right. That's going to do it for us. Just a reminder. Again, I want to say the name of this individual that Shannon had shared with us. Have it right here. Again, if you know any information, we throw it up one more time.

Michelle Giselle Lopez. The phone numbers are on the screen right now. If you know something, make sure you call law enforcement immediately. We want to thank you guys for being here for Crime Weekly News. We will be back later this week with a brand new case. Stay tuned. Stay safe out there. We'll see you in a little bit