A comparable thing happened regarding the Sioux City plane crash in 1989.
Just a few years ago, I heard that the most common treatment given to the passengers on that plane was charcoal, because they had swallowed that massively polluted river water. I hadn’t heard that, and hadn’t even thought of it, but it made sense. (Charcoal adsorbs toxins, and is mixed with sorbitol, which is a very powerful laxative.)
Someone, and I think it was here (haven’t read the whole thread) said that it sounded like this pilot was in the throes of a manic episode. I do know that psilocybin is being investigated as a remedy for treatment-refractory depression, but it must be used in very carefully controlled conditions.
The pilot has admitted to taking mushrooms 48-hours before the flight.
Two things:
- I cannot imagine anyone on mushrooms deciding to shut down a plane’s engines. You hallucinate some and certainly should not be driving or operating anything except your stereo but you are definitely still in control of yourself.
- I’ve never heard of a mushroom trip lasting much more than six hours (give or take). While you might be ‘hungover’ (of a sort) afterwards and not in shape to fly a plane neither are you still tripping 48-hours later. Certainly not so out-of-your-mind that shutting down the plane’s engines in flight would even be considered.
That said, it has been a few decades since I used magic mushrooms. Maybe things have changed but that would surprise me. 48-hours later you should be well in control of yourself. Either he is lying, had an unusual reaction or ate some ridiculous amount of mushrooms (and not even sure that would suffice to trip for 48-hours) or he took something else unknowingly.
Full title: Off-duty pilot accused of trying to shut off airliner’s engines mid-flight said he took ‘magic mushrooms’ 48 hours before the incident, court documents say
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/25/us/alaska-airlines-pilot-wednesday/index.html
There are mushies and then there are mushrooms. I’ve eaten psilocybins many times. Mild hallucinogen, very enjoyable (to me). Even double doses are still fine.
But I know crazier people who have taken amanita species. It’s like comparing near beer and overproof rhum.
The funny thing is I’ve heard interviews with air traffic controllers who were working when some bad thing happened (The Hudson River landing, I think it was), and they often make comments like “I could hear the stress in the pilot’s voice.” Yet to us non-aviation people it sounds exactly like what you described. “Stress” in a pilot’s voice is very subtle, apparently, and something only people who talk to them on a daily basis can hear.
It just occurred to me that it would seem this guy was able to seem “normal” enough to know he had to be at work, get dressed (cleaned up, showered, etc), get to the airport, get past security and then staff at the gate, get in the cockpit and meet the pilots with no one thinking this guy is really off and they should be worried.
If you are messed up enough on drugs to think turning the plane’s engines off might be fun one would suppose others might notice the guy was not acting right.
Here is an unfire-walled account from the Times:
Same. But then they talk about him not sleeping for 40 hours. In my not completely misspent youth, I dabbled in shrooms and acid. I couldn’t imagine what it would take for a two day psychedic bender that would be undetectable but the rest of the crew. By the time you might get to starting day three, you look like hell. The normal routine was take your shrooms/acid, enjoy the next 6-12 hours, then sleep.
I’ve several times heard it said that among other shortcomings, the FARs contain no definition for the word “flight”.
I’m thinking maybe he was honest about the mushrooms , but lied about when he took them — that he took them just before boarding, or maybe even on the plane (easy to conceal in a sandwich or whatever).
Sorry for another hijack…
When it comes to gray areas in the regs, what bothers me is people like that examiner who won’t acknowledge that they exist. Of course they do. We couldn’t possibly write regulations or laws covering every conceivable instance, with no loopholes or omissions. That’s why we have courts and enforcement officers with some degree of discretion.
I’ve written a fair bit for the aviation magazines and I once wrote a piece about gray areas in the regs. In my research I found some interesting examples, one of which caused a professor at Embry Riddle to raise his eyebrows at the implications it raised. It’s one of the only articles I’ve written that didn’t get bought - my editors didn’t want to list examples of lapses in the regulations.
One must not publicize how thinly dressed the emperor is.
Save it for a retirement project, and publish online. 
Maybe one day I’ll do it here. The best example I came up with was a way to fly, within nearly all regulations, with 12 people in a Cessna 150. And I say ‘nearly’ only because they would still get you for “careless or reckless operation”. That’s an example of a good gray area because it would cover stupid stunts like that. But it’s an interesting exercise in parsing the regs.
Also along these lines, I once read an article (I think by Les Abend) in which he described a thought exercise he did with his first officers. He would propose conducting the day’s flights 100% in compliance with all FAA and company regulations. And he concluded that this was pretty much impossible. I haven’t been able to find that piece again, please let me know if anyone comes across it.
Edit: This was more of a hijack than I planned on. I’ll move this over the GA thread if anyone else wants to pursue this tangent.
Does anybody else think the face on the tail of Alaska Airline planes looks a little like either Johnny Cash in his big-hair days or maybe Abe Lincoln in a furry hat?
It’s supposed to be an Alaska Native in a traditional coat, apocryphally a fellow named Oliver Amouack.
I live near Seattle and I usually fly Alaska when travelling on the west coast, and I don’t think I’ll be dissuaded from flying with them in the future because of this incident.
It’s entirely possible that this may have been the only psychotic drug-crazed suicidal senior pilot that Alaska Airlines employed. Whether they have any more on staff I cannot say. OTOH, in the spirit of the old expression “kiss your ass goodbye”, be aware that the letters in “Alaska Airlines” can be rearranged to spell “Aerial Anal Kiss”. 
That should probably be applied to Alaska Airlines flight 261 in January, 2000. Harrowing barely covers it. To be fair, the pilots did truly heroic work to save the plane (spoiler: they don’t). Fantastic job on their part but they were in an impossible situation. The fault was with the airline trying to save money. But, that was 23+ years ago. I would not consider the company today as the same one back then.
Sensible. A one-off instance of someone with problems slipping through cracks can happen to any airline. If there are more cases on the same airline, then considering flying with a rival might be a good move. 
Especially (as discussed elsewhere in this thread) as the medical certification process incentivizes air crew to hide developing symptoms and has poor tools for non-voluntary health surveillance to counter that.