Pilot threatened to turn plane around if passengers didn't stop exchanging nudes

Mara Leighton
Tue, August 30, 2022 at 6:35 PM·2 min read

A Southwest Airlines pilot told passengers "vacation is going to be ruined" if they didn't stop AirDropping nude images on the plane.
  • A viral TikTok captured a pilot threatening not to fly if passengers didn't stop AirDropping nudes.
  • In the clip, the pilot told passengers to 'quit sending naked pictures' or vacation would be ruined.
  • Cyberflashing isn't a new problem, and legislators are working to criminalize the act.
A Southwest Airlines pilot piloting a plane to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, threatened to turn the plane around and involve security if a passenger didn't stop sending unsolicited AirDropped nudes. An August 25 TikTok chronicling the incident was uploaded by user Teighlor Marsalis (@teighmars) and has since been viewed more than 2 million times.

"So here's the deal," the pilot said over the intercom. "If this continues while we're on the ground, I'm going to have to pull back to the gate, everybody's going to have to get off, we're going to have to get security involved, and [your] vacation is going to be ruined," "Whatever that AirDrop thing is — quit sending naked pictures, let's get yourself to Cabo," he continued.

The incident reportedly happened before the plane was airborne when a passenger received the explicit image and complained to a flight attendant. Marsalis, who told Insider via Instagram direct message she thought the pilot handled the situation "perfectly," said she also received an AirDrop request but denied it. In a statement provided to Insider, Southwest Airlines said the safety, security, and wellbeing of customers and employees was its "highest priority at all times. When made aware of a potential problem, our employees address issues to support the comfort of those traveling with us."

Cyberflashing, the practice of sending unsolicited and explicit photos to nearby strangers, is not a new problem. In a 2017 Pew Research Center report, 53% of women ages 18-29 reported having been sent unsolicited obscene images (compared to 37% of men within the same range). A 2021 report found that 33% of women under 35 reported having been sexually harassed online in general — three times more often than men within the same age range.

Cyberflashing is already considered a misdemeanor in Texas after legislators teamed up with dating app Bumble in 2019 to criminalize it. In California, a new bill sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom on August 22 would give unsuspecting recipients the ability to sue the senders if they're older than 18.
"Just as individuals suffer sexual harassment and abuse in their physical, non-digital lives," Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry said when the California Assembly approved the bill, "there's a growing incidence of individuals being harassed by receiving unsolicited, sexually explicit images and videos including from people they do not know."

Email tips on all things internet to mleighton@insider.com.
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I'm honestly betting that the only reason the pilot knew was because most air crews these days use company iPads running ForeFlight or similar apps since they can provide aeronautical charts, plates, weather info, and other info that generally replaces thick reams of expensive and regularly-published paper versions. These iPads are usually set up by basically minimum wage tech workers and have so many configuration issues that even the rare actual inspection won't pick up those issues.
Fucking hilarious. Learn to read paper maps and use paper charts.
 
Wow, who would have guessed that a public networked protocol that just tells your device to download local data could actually be a terrible idea. Yea, you can filter it to just known devices or turn it off, but your average device user is an incompetent, and should be treated as such.
This is an alarming lack of trust in the multinational corporation that requires I report you to the relevant authorities.
For SHAME
 
I don't get it, what the fuck is an AirDrop. And why do the passengers have their phone set up so anybody can send them pictures of their penis?
its local peer to peer file sharing, and it defaults to "all" for its connection settings. So I can push a dick pic to all the nearby phones. I think there's a "accept/deny" prompt but most people are conditioned to just press accept, since usually when you see it, someone is actually trying to send you something you want.
 
its local peer to peer file sharing, and it defaults to "all" for its connection settings. So I can push a dick pic to all the nearby phones. I think there's a "accept/deny" prompt but most people are conditioned to just press accept, since usually when you see it, someone is actually trying to send you something you want.
It used to be even better, it would do it *silently* so you could just airdrop shit to people's laptops and they'd not even notice until they happened to look in the (I think) downloads folder. Great fun on public wifi.
 
What's really embarrassing is that the pilot has to act like he's your father: "QUIET KIDS, OR I'M TURNING AROUND BACK HOME AND DISNEYLAND TRIP IS OVER!"

Why is it so hard for people to act like adults?
One of the very few things that pilots have left is the ability to do anything at any time, legally sacrosanct, if they have a reason to think that there's a danger to the airplane, its passengers, or property on the ground. As long as they can make the argument properly they basically have complete freedom. Some fucko sending dick pics to their Foreflight iPads is 100% grounds for them to turn the fucking multi-million-dollar airplane around and turn the entire passenger list in for questioning in the hopes of getting one guy into Guantanamo Bay. After all the freedoms and job security they've lost in the last three years I'm happy to let the pilots act like miniature dictators.
 
I'm honestly betting that the only reason the pilot knew was because most air crews these days use company iPads running ForeFlight or similar apps since they can provide aeronautical charts, plates, weather info, and other info that generally replaces thick reams of expensive and regularly-published paper versions. These iPads are usually set up by basically minimum wage tech workers and have so many configuration issues that even the rare actual inspection won't pick up those issues.
Fucking hilarious. Learn to read paper maps and use paper charts.
While it's far more lulzy to imagine this scenario as someone sending dick pics to the captain or FO on his ipad, electronic charts and approach plates use all of the same terminology and symbols as paper charts and approach plates. If you can read one on your ipad, be it a VFR sectional or an IFR Enroute chart, you can read the paper version. It's not like the difference between waze and a road atlas.
 
While it's far more lulzy to imagine this scenario as someone sending dick pics to the captain or FO on his ipad, electronic charts and approach plates use all of the same terminology and symbols as paper charts and approach plates. If you can read one on your ipad, be it a VFR sectional or an IFR Enroute chart, you can read the paper version. It's not like the difference between waze and a road atlas.
I'm not gonna TMI past the point where I'd tell you that you're quite wrong and it's genuinely horrific how few pilots actually know how to fold/refold/orient paper charts and properly navigate thick indexed books (let alone know what an index is) or know that B123 is the 123rd page of section B of some flipbook that gets republished in its entirety every 56 days. Entirely lost on them.
 
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