Joseph Emerson, the former Alaska Airlines pilot who had a bad and extra-long trip thanks to some magic mushrooms and consequently did something very dangerous while on the jumpseat inside a cockpit, has successfully avoided further jail time.

Emerson pleaded guilty in federal court in a September plea deal to one count of interfering with a flight crew in connection with the October 2023 incident. And on Monday he was sentenced to time served and three years of supervised released, as KPIX reports. This is a far happier outcome than the possible 20 years in prison he faced on the federal charge.

Emerson was separately charged in state court in Oregon with 83 counts of reckless endangerment, to which he pleaded no contest and was sentenced to five years probation and 664 hours of community service — eight hours for each person he endangered — as well as $60,569 in restitution, mostly to Alaska Airlines.

Emerson had initially faced 83 counts of attempted murder, but those charges were dropped.

The incident unfolded on a Horizon Air commuter flight from Everett, Washington to San Francisco on October 22, 2023 (Horizon is the short-haul partner to Alaska Airlines). Emerson had been dropped off at the airport by a friend and had told the friend he was not doing well, mentally, after taking psilocybin mushrooms for the first time on a camping trip with friends in Washington's Methow Valley two days earlier.

Emerson boarded the plane to head home to his family in Pleasant Hill, and had the privilege of sitting on the jumpseat in the cockpit, as an employee of Alaska Airlines.  But not long into the trip, Emerson began hallucinating that he was in a dream, and was trapped on this plane, and he began to act erratically because he was trying to wake himself up from the dream — thinking that if he tried to to bring down the plane, he would wake up.

As he would later explain to investigators, he reached for two red handles on the ceiling of the cockpit that are meant for fire suppression, which cut off gas to the engines and could have potentially brought down the plane.

The two pilots in the cockpit were able to stop him and wrestle his hands away from the handles, and he was then sent to sit in the back of the cabin of the plane. There, Emerson reportedly tried drinking hot coffee directly from the pot on the flight attendants' cart, and attempted to open one of the cabin doors. After this, feeling slightly more lucid, he told one of the flight attendants to ziptie his hands, which they did.

The plane diverted to Portland and safely made an emergency landing, and Emerson was promptly arrested. He was later diagnosed with hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (HPPD), a disorder that can affect first-time users of hallucinogens and create frightening hallucinations days after they consumed the substances.

"I’m not a victim. I am here as a direct result of my actions," Emerson said in court prior to the sentencing, per KTVU. "I can tell you that this very tragic event has forced me to grow as an individual."

Portland-based US District Judge Amy Baggio, in issuing the sentence, said that the HPPD-related hallucinations created a unique danger in the case.

"Pilots are not perfect," Baggio said. "They are human. There is no such thing as a perfect pilot. They are people and all people need help sometimes."

Baggio added that Emerson's story "offers a cautionary tale worth telling beyond the confines of this case."

Emerson had previously revealed that he suffered from depression, following the 2018 death of a close friend, and that he self-medicated with alcohol in coping with this. His case further highlighted the stigma around mental healthcare among pilots, and how many avoid seeking it because of the peril they face in potentially losing their license or their job.