The Alaska Airlines pilot who tried to shut down a plane's engines during a flight in 2023 won't serve any more jail time.

Joseph Emerson, traveling off duty in the Embraer 175 cockpit jump seat, was sentenced Monday in federal court in Portland, Ore., to time served and three years of supervised release. He will also have to pay a $100 fine, KATU-TV reported.

"Pilots are not perfect," U.S. District Judge Amy Baggio said before announcing her sentence. "They are human. There is no such thing as a perfect pilot. They are people and all people need help sometimes."

In September, Emerson, a resident of Pleasant Hill, Calif., pleaded guilty to interfering with a flight crew as part of a deal with prosecutors. He had faced 20 years and prosecutors initially wanted a year in jail.

Emerson's attorneys said has been attending addiction counseling for alcoholism, and he and his wife started Clear Skies Ahead to bring more awareness to pilots' mental health challenges.

Emerson also pleaded no contest to state charges of endangering an aircraft and 83 counts of endangering another person. Emerson was sentenced to five years of probation and 50 days in jail, but he was credited for time served.

On Oct.22, 2023, the flight, operated by Alaska Airlines affiliate Horizon Air, departed from Everett, Wash., and was headed to San Francisco. He was catching a ride home, and because the flight was full, used a jump seat in the cockpit.

While the plane was more than 30,000 feet above ground, prosecutors said Emerson threw a pilot headset in the cockpit and said "I'm not OK."

Then, he attempted to pull the handles that cut fuel from the engines in case of a fire. But he wasn't successful because other pilots stopped him from getting them all the way down.

Emereson left the cockpit.

"The Horizon captain and first officer quickly responded, engine power was not lost and the crew secured the aircraft without incident," Alaska Airlines said in a statement.

The plane was diverted to Portland International Airport, where Emerson was taken into custody.

The Embraer 175 is a twin-engine, narrow-body regional jet airliner produced by the Brazilian aerospace company Embaer that seats between 70 and 80 passengers.

Emerson, during an interview with CBS Mornings, said he has a sense of "all-out panic and fear" in the cockpit and was grieving the death of his best friend. He had been returning from the funeral marking the anniversary of the man.

Emerson said he used alcohol and psilocybin, or "magic mushrooms," two days before the flight.

Emerson's wife, Sarah Stretch, told Oregon Public Broadcasting in 2023 that she'd tried to get her husband to seek care. But the family's finances were strained, he told her.

"I mean, in the dream, in that dissociative state, I thought they were going to wake me up. It didn't wake me up, right?" Emereson told CBS "I was in reality. I know that now. You know, it's the most consequential three seconds of my life."

He added, "I had no intention of crashing an actual airplane. I wanted to wake up. I was convinced I wasn't going home to my wife and kids."

The Emersons were also interviewed on ABC's Good Morning America in 2024.

Capt. Dennis Tajer, an American Airlines pilot and union spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association, told OPB that federal regulators have made it easier for pilots to get mental health resources.

"The FAA was kind of stuck in the 1970s -- they've lunged themselves into maybe the '90s, and I'm being generous," he said.

"The process to get back into the flight deck using approved medication can take years. The FAA is understaffed. Highly motivated, but understaffed, and drowning in its own bureaucratic process."

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