Passengers onboard an Alaska Airlines flight Sunday have described seeing an off-duty pilot being handcuffed after he allegedly tried to shut off the plane’s engines mid-flight. Joseph Emerson, 44, was arrested after the flight from Everett, Washington, to San Francisco was diverted to Portland after he allegedly attempted to pull a handle in the cockpit that would have shut down the fuel supply to the aircraft’s engines. Passenger Bailey Beck told SFGate he saw a man—later identified by authorities as Emerson—walk “from the cockpit to the back of the plane by himself, where he was then handcuffed to a railing and didn’t make any disturbance from the rear.” “The flight attendants said a passenger had a mental breakdown, so it was like he tried to shut off the engines and then surrendered willingly after being thwarted,” Beck added. Fellow passenger Alex Wood separately told ABC News that Emerson was “wearing a lanyard, a sweater,” and looked like an airline employee. Emerson is charged with 83 counts of attempted murder and other offenses.
