An Alaska Airlines regional flight to San Francisco was diverted to Portland, Oregon, on Sunday after a 44-year-old pilot in the cockpit tried to shut down the plane’s engines mid-flight, Reuters reported, citing News.ro.

Portland police arrested the suspect and charged him with 83 counts, including attempted murder and endangering an aircraft, according to the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office.

“We caught a guy trying to stop the engines,” the plane’s pilot told air traffic control at the time of the incident, according to a radio recording.

“It doesn’t seem to cause any problems. I think he is immobilized. We want law enforcement officers to (detain the plane) upon landing,” the pilot said.

According to some posts on X, it is about company pilot Joseph David Emerson.

The government agency responsible for the regulation and control of civil aviation in the United States (FAA) announced in a note that Reuters writes that it was consulted that the man, the pilot who was not on duty at the time of the accident. facts, tried to stop the engines of the Embraer 175 plane by turning on the fire-fighting system.

On Sunday, he did not have time to do so due to the speed of the crew’s intervention, which immobilized him.

The suspect was medically cleared for duty last month, according to a federal database.

Investigations were ongoing to understand his motives, which were “in no way related to international news,” the FAA said.

In the United States, off-duty pilots are usually assigned as passengers on regional flights so they can return home or catch the next flight.

They sit on special seats, in the cockpit, as in the case of the suspect.

Alaska Airlines reported that all passengers on the plane had arrived at their destination on the following flights. (News.ro)