Off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot charged with attempted murder after trying to stop engines mid-flight
Off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot charged with attempted murder after trying to stop engines mid-flight
Flight 2059 from Everett, Washington, was bound for San Francisco when it was diverted to Portland, where Joseph David Emerson was booked on 83 counts of attempted murder.
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If we gave people who don't want to be here anymore access to safe, effective, painless, suicide, desperate people wouldn't have to resort to desperate methods of opportunity that can harm others.
We aren't willing to be a society. We could not be more clear on that point. Visit one of your local tent cities where we leave defective capital batteries to die of exposure and police harassment if you're still hazy on this fact. We aren't willing to help the struggling in anything but empty rhetoric about how, lol, compassionate we consider ourselves. The least we could do is offer an out that doesn't cause a scene or externalized death. Hell, turn it into an industry let our capitalist owners profit more off of it, win/win.
Inb4 "this bastard tried to kill others, they deserve no mercy!" yeah, when you're suicidal, you aren't exactly able to think outside your own pain, even more reason not to continue to let death by gun purchase be the current gold standard of American suicide.
While I agree that most of the talk about helping those struggling is empty I think it's a bit disingenuous to imply suicide by airplane was the only option available to him. This happened in America were there are almost as many guns as people. Hurting others during a suicide attempt by trying to crash a plane is a choice.
We definitely need better mental health resources but killing 83 other people wasn't his only option.
As stated, when you're suicidal, you aren't really looking beyond your own pain and opportunities to end it. It's easy for someone who is doing all right to tell someone in white hot anguish what they should have done.
Your response is indemic of the crisis of empathy in this country. It's easy for a rich person to tell a poor person what they should have done instead of stealing. Our people much prefer the easy way of casting judgment and advocating maximum punitive vengeance so that they can play pretend we live in a black and white, just nation and world, where everyone earned what they have and the suffering did something to deserve it.
The hard thing would trying to understand for what drove one of our people to this madness to begin with, and maybe even help. But that would be extremely un-American. Hoo boy, lets deep fry his ass boy howdy! Gonna get assed raped in prison itellyouwhat that'll teach him to... value the sanctity of the lives of himself and others?
If he's not thinking clearly, why he would he choose your proposed suicide method? It's a more rational choice but like you've said this isn't a decision being made rationally.
The same reason that people like him choose methods that can fail by being inturrupted, by failure of method, or by possibility of permanent disability/disfigurement rather than death.
Certainty.
The offer of going to an office with a guarantee of an end would stop the vast majority of other methods where one must overcome that lack of certainty to make the attempt. Even a gunshot to the head can and does fail, leaving matters significantly worse for the individual.
I'm not saying it would stop everyone, but it would stop a great many of desperate people from buying guns or running into traffic while in a bad place and potentially using it on someone they feel is the cause before themselves, or situations like this.
Some people want to go out loud, but that isn't the norm. The goal is usually just going out with a minimum of suffering, with the loudness of the act being a symptom of the person's opportunities for attempts, ie what they can and cannot access.
When I was suicidal many long years ago I researched suicide success rates and gunshot to the head only had about a 90% success rate.
That was way too low for me to feel comfortable with it.
Maybe you are the one lacking empathy here if you think that it is right and defendable for someone to eradicate 83 lives because they are depressed.
Is it "right and defendable" that a drowning person will quite literally climb on top of you and push you under if you get too close? No, but it won't stop them from doing it.
Please learn to read
Well fortunately we're going to have the opportunity to find out what he really was thinking, this time. Until that's released to the public, you don't know any more about it than the people you're shouting down. Since he chose such a specific method, and not on his own plane which would have been easier, there's reason to suspect it was a targeted attack on others. Being willing to die in the attempt is a step away from being suicidal. Would that all attempts at mass carnage were resolved with all lives saved, like this one.
Never been suicidal eh?
That's a bold assumption since you know nothing about me. It's also incorrect, I've just never tried to murder a bunch of other people too. Most people who commit suicide don't try to pair it with mass murder.
This America, buy a gun.
Or find a bridge.
Or Google the "best" ways and pick one.
This is something different. Either wannabe mass shooter who didn't think he had the skills to get the body count he wanted, or he wanted his name to stick around longer than the 30 secs that the names of shooters do these days, or he was mad at his employer and wanted to hurt them...or....
Point is, he didn't just want to kill himself, he wanted to do it while causing a standout mass casualty event.
Edit: I do want to add that it's at least possible he had an immediate acute psychiatric issue e.g. Schizophrenic break and thought the plane was full of aliens, or something along those lines.
No way he would have become a transport pilot with such psychological issues.
I agree that it's most likely he just wanted to kill a lot of people, along with himself.
But, late-onset schizophrenia is a thing and it appears in men during their 40s. I'm sure there are plenty of other psychological issues that either only appear later in life, or that some people are able to mask/hide. My point was that it's a possible explanation, not that it was the most likely one.
Edit: Looks like "acute psychiatric event" might be the most plausible explanation, at least according the FBI's current publicly available understanding of the incident.
“Defective Capital Batteries”. That’s good
Seriously, fuck the FAA.
They just recently allowed pilots to take anti-depressants ... except they're older medications that all have frequent unpleasant side effects like "inability to have an orgasm". ADHD -- tough shit, can't take those meds and keep your license. Any medication that "has an effect on the central nervous system" is banned apart from a short list.
All it does is encourage pilots to lie or forgo treating their very treatable conditions.
As someone with ADHD... What the fuck? Driving without my meds is much more dangerous because EVERY sensory input is jumping into my attention span. Much easier to focus on important things while on meds
It used to be you could have never been diagnosed with ADHD -- but don't worry! Now the rules say you just can't currently have ADHD or have taken medication for it in the past 4 years.
And yes, these rules also apply to private pilot licenses. That being said, how may professional pilots do you think have mild/moderate ADHD and have to "suck it up" because they want to keep their jobs?
Makes complete sense, especially considering you can have a pacemaker and still get cleared by an AME to fly.
Oh man, guess that anyone with ADHD should just try not having it if they want to be a pilot!
I want to believe that the rule is there to not bar people who were incorrectly diagnosed in the past but... I wouldn't put it past them to believe ADHD can be "cured" or "gotten over"
What a shitty take. No amount of suicidal thoughts or emotional disturbance he had could've justified the murder of 83 innocent people, all with their own lives, loved ones, experiences... You are trying to justify their eradication by saying that it's excusable to kill people if you are depressed.
Your lit teacher had a lot of discussions with your parents, eh?
Not even a single word above you is a justification, any more than advocating for fire safety regulations is justifying wildfires.
You wanna try reading it again? Take it slow, sound out the words?
It's frustrating when people can't tell the difference between justification and understanding...
Is it right, justifiable, excusable? No.
But I can understand being in such a place mentally where you don't think or care about others pain, you're simply enveloped in your own struggle.
People make really really poor decisions when backed far enough into a corner. If they can't see an exit, they'll make their own. That's often far messier than it had to be.
I don't want to agree with you, but I do.
I chose staring down ugly truths over the bliss of ignorance a long time ago. It's my core value, and I understand why most don't, it isn't a pleasant way to think or live.