‘Lie to Fly’
Watch our new documentary on FX and Hulu starting Friday, Aug. 23, at 10 p.m. Eastern.
Minutes before boarding an Alaska Airlines flight home in 2023, Joseph Emerson, a pilot, sent a text to his wife, eager to reunite with their two young children and longing to be by her side.
The flight was full, and Emerson, who was off duty, took the cockpit jump seat. What should have been a routine trip quickly turned dramatic and dangerous. During the two-hour journey from Everett, Wash., to San Francisco, Emerson reached up and pulled the plane’s two fire-suppression handles, designed to cut the fuel supply and shut down both engines. Two days earlier, Emerson had consumed psychedelic mushrooms. He had long harbored fears that…
