United Airlines is facing yet another probe by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) after video emerged of passengers being allowed into the cockpit while a plane was at cruise altitude during a flight from Denver to Toronto on April 10.
The video was posted by Hensley Meulens on his Instagram, showing the hitting coach for the Colorado Rockies baseball team sitting in the Captain’s seat joking about landing the plane.
Another passenger on the plane was filming inside the cockpit and the door was open when a third passenger briefly entered the flight deck. During this time, the Captain was nowhere to be seen.
Muelens captioned the video: “Had some fun in the cockpit on our flight from Denver to Toronto. Thanks to the captain and the first officer of our United charter that allowed me this great experience.”
The video has since been deleted the video from his Instagram, but not before copies were posted across the internet. The incident happened on a Major League Baseball charter flight for the team.
Although United was operating a private charter flight, it is still against both company and FAA policies to allow passengers into the cockpit during flight or not to have the flight deck secured.
“We’re deeply disturbed by what we see in that video, which appears to show an unauthorized person in the flight deck at cruising altitude while the autopilot was engaged,” a spokesperson for United has said of the alleged incident.
“As a clear violation of our safety and operational policies, we’ve reported the incident to the FAA and have withheld the pilots from service while we conduct an investigation.”
Some commentators have suggested that the policy breach shouldn’t be taken too seriously as this happened on a private charter flight rather than a regular commercial service, although the rules are very clear that they apply to charters just as much as they apply to regularly scheduled flights.
Of course, this incident couldn’t come at a worse time for United, which is facing an FAA investigation over a slew of accidents and mishaps. As part of the investigation, United has been forced to delay the launch of new routes to Manila and Faro, Portugal.
