Moment hero Alaska Airlines captain calmly tells air traffic control he has ‘subdued’ off-duty pilot Joseph  Emerson, 44, ‘who tried to crash plane and kill 84 people’

The dramatic moment an Alaska Airlines captain became the picture of grace under pressure was captured on an air traffic control recording.

On Sunday, an off-duty pilot sitting in the jump seat in the cockpit of an Alaska-affiliated airline tried to wrestle control of the plane and shut down the engines.

Within seconds, the captain and his first officer had stopped their colleague and removed him from the cockpit, saving the aircraft and all 84 passengers on board.

‘We have the man who tried to shut down the engines from the cockpit. It doesn’t sound like he’s causing a problem at the back right now, and I think he’s subdued. Furthermore, we want law enforcement as soon as we are on the ground and parked,” the captain calmly tells ground control.

The suspect has been identified as Joseph Emerson, 44, who has been charged with 83 counts of attempted murder. There were 80 passengers, including children, on board the plan, as well as four crew members.

The flight was en route from Everett, Washington, to San Francisco and was forced to dive into Portland as a result of Emerson’s actions.

Passengers aboard the Alaska Airlines flight said they were told the plane was diverting due to a “medical emergency.” Aubrey Gavello, who was on the plane, said a flight attendant told passengers that Emerson had had a nervous breakdown

One passenger described Emerson’s behavior as “bizarre.” Bailey Beck told it The San Francisco Chronicle that after being removed from the cockpit, the pilot walked to the back of the plane without being restrained, where he was handcuffed to a rail.

A spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration said the suspect attempted to shut down the engines by turning on the engine’s fire suppression system.

Alaska Airlines said Emerson grabbed the engine’s fire handle, also known as the fire suppression system, which consists of a T-shaped handle for each engine.

‘When the T-handle is fully deployed, a valve in the wing closes to shut off fuel supply to the engine. In this case, our crew’s quick response to reset the T-handles ensured no loss of engine power,” Alaska said.

Retired pilot John Cox said The Washington Post that switching on the fire system is in the east. “You want them to be accessible in the event of an engine fire,” he said.

Emerson’s neighbors told DailyMail.com that he lives with his wife, Sarah Stretch, and two young sons in a tight-knit residential block in Pleasant Hill, Californiain the rolling hills east of San Francisco.

Formal charges against Emerson are expected to be filed Tuesday in Multnomah County District Court in Portland, where he was expected to appear in the afternoon for an arraignment and enter a plea, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office said.

Emerson joined Alaska Air Group as Horizon’s first officer in August 2001 and left Horizon in 2012 to join Virgin America as a pilot, Alaska said.

Emerson’s neighbors told DailyMail.com that he lives with his wife, Sarah Stretch, and two young sons in a tight-knit apartment block in Pleasant Hill, California, in the rolling hills east of San Francisco.

Lou Rossi, an elderly neighbor, described Emerson (pictured) as a sweet man who recently helped him find items at a local Safeway grocery store and let him get some logs from his house to build a workbench for his own son to build.

Emerson has been charged with 83 counts of attempted murder for each person aboard the Embraer 175 plane, which took off from Everett in suburban Seattle on Sunday at 5:23 p.m. (Pictured: The same aircraft type involved in Sunday’s incident)

Emerson became first officer of Alaska Airlines following Alaska’s acquisition of Virgin America in 2016 and became captain of Alaska Airlines in 2019. Alaska said that “at no time have his certifications been denied, suspended or revoked.”

“The crew was able to subdue the suspect and he was removed from the cockpit,” the FAA release said. The engines were never turned off, Alaska said.

Aubrey Gavello, who was on the plane, said a flight attendant told passengers that Emerson had had a nervous breakdown.

“After we landed and the gentleman was escorted away, the flight attendant got back on the loudspeaker and said, plain and simple, ‘He was having a nervous breakdown.’ We had to get him off the plane immediately,” she said ABC.

She said passengers were not immediately warned of what Alaska Airlines called the “safety threat” until a flight attendant told them over the loudspeaker that there was “an emergency and the plane needed to land immediately.”

Gavello said they were later told it was a “medical emergency,” and she heard a flight attendant tell the suspect, “It’s going to be okay, it’s okay, we’re getting you off the plane.”

Another passenger, Alex Wood, said the pilot announced that “there was a malfunction in the cockpit.”

“It was very professional, very calm and we didn’t really know what was going on until we landed,” he told ABC.

Once the plane landed, Wood said police went to the back of the plane and escorted a handcuffed man off the plane.

He noted that the suspect was “wearing a lanyard and a sweater” and that he “looked like an airline employee.”

Neighbors described Emerson as a cheerful, playful father, a friendly man with no problems of which they were aware. He played basketball with his children on a court he built for them in the backyard, and invited neighbors to parties.

They also had positive things to say about their wife, describing her as a loving mother and a swim coach who taught physical education at a local community college.

“It’s just very shocking, disturbing news,” said neighbor Karen Yee. ‘They are excellent neighbors. He is a fantastic father. He plays with the kids all the time. He is very friendly. He’s just a great guy.

“He’s very understanding of other people,” she said. “We have a son with special needs, and he is very good to him. We just couldn’t imagine him doing anything to hurt anyone.”

“It’s very hard for us to believe that he would do something like this deliberately,” Yee added through tears. “I can’t imagine him doing anything that would hurt anyone.”