Colorado Rockies hitting coach Hensley Meulens has prompted a federal investigation as a concerning video has surfaced online.
The clip, which was posted to Instagram by Meulens himself, shows him sitting in the cockpit during a team flight.
The Wall Street Journal reports that this occurred on a United Airlines charter flight on April 10, with the Rockies flying from Denver to Toronto. While the plane was on autopilot and Meulens was not touching anything, this is considered a major security violation.
Meulens is shown sitting behind the controls in the captain’s seat, giving the camera a thumbs up before it pans to a uniformed United flight officer sitting in the co-pilot’s seat. “I’m going to land the plane tonight,” he joked, mimicking pushing the aircraft’s yoke and pointing to the controls.
The Colorado Rockies Coach took the video down after it went viral online, but apparently not quickly enough. You can see it right below:
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United Airlines Makes A Statement On The Colorado Rockies Incident
The FAA has confirmed it is investigating, explaining that federal regulations prohibit specific individuals from coming onto the flight deck, though they refused to comment on the investigation itself.
“Federal regulations restrict flight deck access to specific individuals,” the FAA said.
Meanwhile, United claimed to be “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.”
“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,” they added.
The Rockies have also refused to comment on the situation following inquiries from some of the major news networks.
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