A pilot was heard delivering an expletive-laced rant about the San Francisco Bay Area earlier this month, reports said.
The bizarre diatribe was picked up on the Mineta San Jose International Airport’s air traffic control scanner, according to the blog One Mile at a Time.
The unidentified pilot laced the city and the “liberals” who live there and “weirdos probably driving around in f—ing Hyundais” below.
At one point he said, “F— this place.”
The recording is archived online at Live ATC, a website that provides live air traffic control broadcasts from control towers and radar facilities around the world. A shorter version of the recording is available here.
The authenticity of the recording was confirmed by Live ATC. The pilot and airline have not been identified. “We can neither confirm nor verify who made those comments,” the company said in an email to SF Gate.
Airport spokesperson Demetria Machado called the communication “very unprofessional,” and said she forwarded the communication to the Federal Aviation Administration.
“The FAA is investigating communications that an airline pilot made while taxiing at Mineta San Jose International Airport last week,” read a statement by FAA spokesperson Ian Gregor. “The FAA also reported the incident to the airline.”
“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 statement continued, according to the paper.
Mineta San Jose International Airport is located about 50 miles southeast of downtown San Francisco.
