Lowslung

This right here. If the guy had thought he could get the help he needed without endangering his job, perhaps he wouldn’t have felt the need to self medicate. Not defending his obviously ill advised decision & subsequent actions, but this event should put a spotlight on the FAA’s antiquated rules and processes regarding mental health. There are undoubtedly a lot of pilots that could benefit from modern mental health treatment. How many more ticking time bombs are out there who aren’t getting that treatment?

dera

Psilocybin is a Schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act. It is listed as having high potential for abuse and serve no legitimate medical purpose in the United States.

The fact that Oregon has decriminalized it just shows how broken their drug policies are, and has no value in his defense as these will be federal charges.

I agree with the sentiment that FAA is horrible with mental health issues (and most LTDs are limited in duration for mental health issues as well, often capped at 2 years lifetime). Huge issue, but this guy should not be the poster child for improvements there.

rickair7777

It's very easy to dehumanize people you don't know. Doesn't mean it's OK.

But like I said, I'd have probably killed him in the heat of the moment. So not really very biased.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be consequences either, all I did was speculate as to what they might be. I won't be upset if prison is in the cards.

rickair7777

Yes, those of us in aviation have to play by federal rules.

Yes, it would probably be counter-productive for say ALPA to go there. But it's something for us to think about.

paulcg77

No disrespect intended because I agree with most of what you're saying and I have in the past (especially on the military forum), but there's two sides to what you said. It's easy to dehumanize people you don't know, but it's equally as easy to not see the forest for the trees when it is someone you know/like. I don't work for AS and I never knew this guy, but I also don't have it out for him, which is why I said in my last post about him (which you responded to) that I don't think he had intent to do this and that I expect he'll get off of the attempted murder charges.

With that being said, I understand why several people on here who know him or who are sympathetic to mental health issues as a pilot are reserving judgment, deflecting or implying how this is possibly understandable. Personally, I would have shot him if I had been in that cockpit. According to the criminal complaint, he tried and almost did twist the handles and there was a 30(ish) second struggle in the cockpit before he temporarily snapped out of his drug induced psychosis. Those pilots had 80+ people's lives in their hands. Matter of factly, if he tried this with me, I would have found a way but he would not be alive because his mental health issues and self medication aren't worth me not going home that night and they aren't worth 80 innocent people's lives. What Joe did was not excusable and it was absolutely criminal. If any one of a number of things had gone even slightly differently, we'd be talking right now about a crash. He should do hard prison time, full stop.

dera

ALPA won't die on this hill. If they want to bring light to the issue, they need to find that guy going through divorce who seeks therapy when going through hardship in his life, and then gets violently thrown under the bus by the FAA for it. Unfortunately there are too many of these.

rickair7777

I'd have probably killed him too. I'd have taken the most expedient action to disable any such intruder, and it would probably be lethal.

All I'm saying is it's not terrorism, and sounds like maybe not even a deliberate attempt to crash the plane.

Sounds like this...

Dude had some issues, maybe minor, maybe the kind of thing some pilots just live with, rather than risking their careers.

There's all this media coverage about micro-dosing and mental health benefits. It's even non-criminal under some state laws.

He gives it a try, apparently days in advance of his next scheduled FDP.

Bad trip. Maybe compounded by insomnia for days. At this point he might not be in his right mind.

Takes a JS ride home, but his state of mind may have been impaired even when he made that decision.

Then has a breakdown, psychotic break, whatever.

Point being he might have really only been guilty of using a controlled substance days before he was supposed to have been at work. The rest might have followed as a consequence of circumstance, not intent.

It's pretty well established that being under the influence does not excuse criminal acts. But psychotic episodes are a different thing legally, and he probably was not actually still under the influence. The justice system will have to decide.

paulcg77

It's interesting. I'm from the Bay Area, not far from where Joe has lived (Pleasant Hill in the East Bay) for over a decade according to the media. Anyone who has lived there a long time or is from there is acquainted with most drugs, either personally or through family/friends. It isn't as bad as Portland is right now, but it hasn't been good at any point in my lifetime. I was just speaking with a friend who is a regular mushroom user. Before anyone jumps to conclusions, my friend is a disabled combat (Afghanistan) veteran who was approved by the VA for ketamine and grows shrooms himself for micro dosing to treat PTSD. Anyway, my friend read about Joe and was just remarking to me that there is no way the effects of mushrooms last for 2+ days, not even on your first try. According to him, the half life for psilocybin (mushrooms) is about an hour, and the hallucinogenic effects last 4-6 hours at most. Googling this confirmed pretty much the same thing.

Something doesn't add up here. I'm no toxicologist, but I think he either took shrooms the day of the flight or something else is going on. They can test up to 3 months of psilocybin use with hair samples but they can't discern from this exactly when he took the shrooms. I'm sure he isn't lying about taking shrooms (why make that up when there's a test), but I question his stated timeline. Joe Emerson is 44 years old; he isn't a high school or college student. He isn't stupid. I can buy the narrative that sad middle aged guy experimented with micro dosing to treat his self-acknowledged depression. What I can't empathize with is adult professional with the kind of responsibility he has, knowingly experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs on the day he's sitting in the cockpit.

Excargodog

Horse$hit. One in nine people taking psychedelics will experience flashbacks, sometimes days and weeks after taking their drugs.



Anybody willing to take that degree of risk with passengers in back has no place in pax flying.

rickair7777

Agree with all that, from a chemistry perspective. But hallucinogens can trigger psychotic issues which can persist after the chemistry is done. In some cases it's permanent. Even if it just kept him awake for a couple days, that will put you into an altered state of mind... any SOF operator or even SERE grad should know what I'm talking about. I was definitely seeing things after a few days with no sleep in training. I recognized it for what it was and actually found it entertaining, and it didn't distract me from the training mission at hand. Maybe I was fortunate that I could logically conclude "that blue elephant is cute, but he isn't really supposed to be here, I'll just ignore him".

I admit to potentially having more sympathy for this guy, than for the ULCC dude and his wife who OD'ed on heroin or whatever a few years back, and were found dead by their young kids in the morning.

But I'm just speculating, the courts will have to decide.