A pilot for Southwest Airlines was caught on a hot mic delivering an NSFW rant against the Bay Area earlier this month, according to a report by SF Gate. The pilot is now under investigation by the FAA, and has been confirmed to be an employee of Southwest Airlines. The embarrassing incident took place on Friday, March 12 over the Mineta San Jose International Airport.
The pilot reportedly kicked off by saying: “F— this place, goddamn liberal f—s,” apparently without realizing his microphone was on. He continued in that manner for several more sentences before he was interrupted by an air traffic controller. The audio is no archived at Live ATC, which live stream air traffic control audio transmissions. It has landed both the pilot and the airline in hot water.
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“F—king weirdos, probably driving around in f—ing Hyundais, f—ing roads and s— that go slow as f—,” the pilot said. “You don’t have balls unless you’re f—ing rolling coal, man, goddamn it.”
A spokesperson for Southwest Airlines told SF Gate that they are “fully addressing the situation internally.” They went on: “Our corporate Culture is built on a tenet of treating others with concern and dignity and the comments are inconsistent with the professional behavior and overall respect that we require from our Employees. This situation was an isolated incident involving a single Employee and not representative of the nearly 60,000 hardworking, respectful People of Southwest Airlines.”
FAA spokesperson Ian Gregor issued a separate statement, saying: “FAA regulations prohibit airline pilots from talking about subjects that are unrelated to safely conducting their flight while taxiing and while flying below 10,000 feet altitude. The FAA is investigating communications that an airline pilot made while taxiing at Mineta San Jose International Airport last week. The FAA also reported the incident to the airline.”
The FAA does not identify the subjects of investigations, bu local airline professionals say they know who the pilot was. Private pilot Will Lawton listened to the Live ATC recording, then tweeted: “My opinion is that voice talking during the stuck mic situation matches the voice at the end saying ‘Southwest 531 ready to go.’ As to whether it was the captain or the first officer, there’s no way to know, and only Southwest would have a record of what pilots were working what flights on that day. It just makes me sad and angry to hear folks who are expected to be professionals in [the] care of the general public acting in this manner.”
