Pilot who tried to shut off engines says he was hallucinating on mushrooms

Joseph Emerson, facing 83 counts of attempted murder, says he hoped he would wake up' if Air Alaska plane headed towards crash

The pilot who attempted to shut fuel off to the engines of an Alaska Airlines jet last month after ingesting magic mushrooms has said that he had no intention of hurting anyone - but was trying to come out of a hallucinogenic state.

I thought it would stop both engines, the plane would start to head towards a crash, and I would wake up," Joseph Emerson, 44, told the New York Times in a jailhouse interview published on Friday.