Instead of discussing the weather and estimated flight time, an airline pilot was caught on a hot mic calling San Francisco residents ‘goddamn liberal f*cks’ and ‘f*cking weirdos’.
The pilot is not named but is confirmed to be an employee of Southwest Airlines.
The airline worker is reportedly at the Mineta San Jose International Airport in California when he made it clear that he despises San Francisco Bay Area by saying “F*ck this place.”
The recording was released by private pilot Will Lawton, who always listens to air traffic control chatter. In the recording, the pilot called the locals as ‘f*cking weirdos’ who are ‘probably driving around in f*cking Hyundais’.
“You don’t have balls unless you’re f*cking rolling coal, man, goddamn it,” the pilot said.
The term ‘rolling coal’ refers to the modification of diesel vehicles to boost the amount of fuel in the engine, the Huffington Post said.
Lawton told San Francisco Chronicle that there was ‘no way to know’ whether the comments came from the first officer of the flight or the captain.
“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,” Lawton said.
Meanwhile, Southwest Airlines said in a statement that the recording does not represent the company as a whole.
“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,” the company said. “This situation was an isolated incident involving a single employee and not representative of the nearly 60,000 hardworking, respectful people of Southwest Airlines.”
Ian Gregor, a spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration said that the FAA launched an investigation in response to the comments as the 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.’
“The FAA is investigating communications that an airline pilot made while taxiing at Mineta San Jose International Airport last week,” the FAA said in a statement. “The FAA also reported the incident to the airline.”
The audio recording was archived online at Live ATC, a website that live streams air traffic control audio transmissions.