Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Pilot caught ranting about ‘liberal f***s’ on hot mic during flight

The pilot really didn’t like Hyundais apparently

Josh Marcus
San Francisco
Friday 26 March 2021 12:23 GMT
Comments
Virus Outbreak Airlines
Virus Outbreak Airlines (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Liberals. Guns. Hyundais. These are among the topics of an angry rant about the San Francisco Bay Area from a Southwest Airlines pilot caught on a hot mic earlier this month.

On March 13, on a publicly accessible air traffic control radio feed, Twitter users noticed a pilot communicating with the tower at San Jose Airport began going off, bashing San Francisco, the travel siteOne Mile At A Time reported.

The audio recording only captured one side of the conversation, but the pilot can be heard going on about “liberal f**ks,” “f**king weirdos, probably driving around in f**king Hyundais,” and how “You don’t have balls unless you’re f**king rolling coal man.”

The pilot was later confirmed to be an employee of Southwest. The airline says it is"fully addressing the situation internally."

"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," they said in a statement to the San Francisco Chronicle, which first reported the pilot’s employer. "This situation was an isolated incident involving a single employee and not representative of the nearly 60,000 hardworking, respectful people of Southwest Airlines."

Read more:

Rolling coal, for those uninitiated, is a method of modifying diesel vehicles to up the amount of fuel that goes into the engine, sending out plumes of black and grey exhaust. The practice is not only polluting, but often used to troll liberals and environmentalists. Some coal rollers refer to their cars as “Prius Repellant,” after the popular Toyota hybrid.)

The hot mic is just the latest time in recent days the famously liberal Bay Area has come under fire. Even some Democrats in the state complained after the San Francisco school board decided in January to strip the names of figures like former president Abraham Lincoln.

But perhaps a good old fashioned workplace rant is a sign we’re returning to pre-Covid normal, from many months of extreme passenger bad behaviour on flights, where countless viralvideos captured people having meltdowns and being ejected from planes for refusing to wear a mask.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in