DENVER — A viral video showing a Colorado Rockies baseball coach in the cockpit of a United Airlines charter flight from Denver to Toronto sparked a federal investigation, officials confirmed Friday.
The video, originally posted to social media by the Rockies’ hitting coach Hensley Meulens, appears to show a member of the coaching staff sitting in one of the plane’s two pilot seats while the flight was en route to Canada.
“Had some fun in the cockpit on our flight from Denver to Toronto,” Meulens wrote in the caption. “Thanks to the captain and the first officer of our United charter that allowed me this great experience.”
The coach can be heard in the video joking about landing the plane while pretending to take over the plane’s controls. At one point in the video, a second member of the coaching staff enters the cockpit.
The video has since been deleted.
“We’re deeply disturbed by what we see in that video, which appears to show an unauthorized person in the flight deck at cruise altitude while the autopilot was engaged,” United spokesperson Russell Carlton said in an emailed statement to the Denver Post Friday.
Carlton said allowing the coach into the cockpit violated the airline’s safety and operational policies, and the airline reported the incident to the Federal Aviation Administration.
United Airlines has removed the pilots from service during the investigation, Carlton said.
The FAA confirmed Friday that officials are investigating the incident, as an unauthorized person allowed access to the flight deck violates federal regulations, an FAA spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement Friday.
“We do not comment on the details of open investigations,” the spokesperson wrote.
____