Joseph Emerson (44) had been depressed for some time when he took magic mushrooms in combination with alcohol during a memorial weekend for his friend who died five years ago last month. After barely sleeping for two days, he flew home as a passenger. When he sat in the cockpit with his fellow pilots due to lack of space in the aircraft, he hallucinated so much that he thought he was in “a hellish nightmare”.
“I thought, if I can shut down the engines, the plane will crash and I’ll wake up,” Emerson told The New York Times. In a moment of clarity he left the cockpit and asked a flight attendant to handcuff him “because otherwise things would go wrong”. Even in handcuffs, he continued to behave strangely: he drank from a coffee pot and tried to open an emergency exit. After an emergency landing, Emerson was arrested. He only sobered up five days after eating the mushrooms. He is still in custody on suspicion of 83 attempted murders. That is the number of passengers and crew members who were on board the aircraft.
Psychological complaints
Emerson, who decided to become a pilot at the age of 11 and paid for his flying lessons by mowing the lawn, had had psychological problems for some time, including due to bullying during his youth. After the death of his best friend, he could no longer overcome his depression. He sought help from a therapist. He did not dare to go to a psychiatrist: with a diagnosis and antidepressants he would not be allowed to fly and would not be able to support his family. Emerson tried to resolve his psychological complaints with alternative trauma treatments.
The federal aviation authorities have such strict rules to prevent suicide in the cockpit that it is virtually impossible to continue flying with psychological complaints and the use of antidepressants. Because pilots are required to report their diagnosis and medication use under penalty of a fine of $250,000 or 5 years in prison, depressed pilots prefer not to seek treatment for their complaints at all and are left alone with their problems. “A lot of us aren’t as candid as we should be,” the pilot said.
Following his case, the aviation authorities are scrutinizing the regulations. They want to lower the threshold for pilots to inform their employers about their mental health problems. For example, employers could deploy more psychologists to guide pilots who are on leave due to the use of antidepressants to return to the cockpit.
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2023-11-12 13:25:31
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