--- description: The airline answered a complaining customer Monday by tweeting a lewd image title: US Airways: Investigates Pornographic Tweet image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb46e5d643b0d5ca9/69868ac2d0b6f296a1303ce3/188116624.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [U.S.](/section/us/) ## U.S. Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # US Airways Investigates How It Accidentally Tweeted a Pornographic Picture to a Customer by [Laura Stampler](/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Apr 15, 2014 5:39 PM CUT  A US Airways Group Inc. Embraer SA ERJ-170-100SU plane A US Airways Group Inc. Embraer SA ERJ-170-100SU planeBloomberg/Getty Images by [Laura Stampler](/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Apr 15, 2014 5:39 PM CUT US Airways [said Tuesday that it is investigating](http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-airplane-porntweet-20140415,0,7030869.story "undefined") how the airline, [which boasts 475,000 Twitter followers,](https://twitter.com/USAirways "undefined") managed to accidentally tweet out a pornographic image to a unsatisfied customer. A Twitter user with the alias @ElleRafter was complaining about a flight delay Monday when she received an official response from US Airways that read, ““We welcome feedback, Elle. If your travel is complete, you can detail it here for review and follow-up,” accompanied with a perplexing pornographic image of a women with a plane in between her legs. The tweet was quickly erased and an [apology has been retweeted more than 13,000 times](https://twitter.com/USAirways/status/455789281894604800 "undefined") in less than a day, but not before the mishap went viral. > [](https://twitter.com/ElleRafter/status/455941714193031168) A spokesperson for the airline Davien Anderson said that the image had originally be sent to the airline by a different Twitter user. US Airways then went on to capture the tweet and flag it as inappropriate. What’s unclear is how that captured image was then added on to a completely separate tweet. “We deeply regret the mistake and we are currently reviewing our processes to prevent such errors in the future,” he said. [Yahoo reports](https://www.yahoo.com/tech/obscene-image-on-us-airways-twitter-account-was-first-82791833660.html?src=rss "undefined") that the very same image was sent to American Airlines, which is merging with US Airways, earlier Monday. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/63516/us-airways-tweet-pornographic/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/63516/us-airways-tweet-pornographic/"},"headline":"US Airways Investigates How It Accidentally Tweeted a Pornographic Picture to a Customer","datePublished":"2014-04-15T17:39:08.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T07:18:57.982Z","description":"The airline answered a complaining customer Monday by tweeting a lewd image","url":"https://time.com/63516/us-airways-tweet-pornographic/","keywords":["Transportation","Pornography","twitter","American Airlines","Airplane","tweet"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb46e5d643b0d5ca9/69868ac2d0b6f296a1303ce3/188116624.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Laura Stampler","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb46e5d643b0d5ca9/69868ac2d0b6f296a1303ce3/188116624.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"AMR-US Airways Washington Focus Opens Airport To New Carriers","caption":"AMR-US Airways Washington Focus Opens Airport To New Carriers","creditText":"Bloomberg/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/63516/us-airways-tweet-pornographic/","name":"US Airways Investigates How It Accidentally Tweeted a Pornographic Picture to a Customer"}}]}] ```