A Southwest Airlines pilot was caught on a hot mic making an expletive-filled rant against the Bay Area.
“F**k this place, goddamn liberal f**ks,” he said. “Like eight guns out here somewhere as it is. F**king weirdos, probably driving around in F**king Hyundais, F**king roads and s**t that go slow as f**k.”
The pilot, which Southwest has not publicly identified by name remarks were picked up over the Mineta San Jose International Airport’s air traffic control scanner, and were posted on Live ATC, which livestreams air traffic control audio transmissions.
A spokesperson for Southwest told the San Francisco Chronicle that the pilot heard on the audio is an airline employee and that they were 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,” the spokesman told the Chronicle in a statement. “This situation was an isolated incident involving a single Employee and not representative of the nearly 60,000 hardworking, respectful People of Southwest Airlines.”
Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson Ian Gregor wrote in a statement on Wednesday that “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 the matter, Gregor said.