It’s 2015. You’ve heard of Instagram, and you might have heard of medical Instagram, but pilot Instagram is probably new to you. You can learn about it in David Yanofsky’s horriyfing piece on commercial pilots who take photos from their cockpits while they’re (ostensibly) flying the plane.
After his initial report, Yanofsky has enjoyed quite a bit of harassment from pilots who feel he was out of line, which is documented here:
Much of the backlash seems to have been coordinated on message boards and the Facebook page Shit Pilots Say. Yanofsky’s phone number was posted there several times, with instructions to harass him. One of the people who has posted his number appears to be a pilot for Spirit Airlines, the low-cost carrier based in Miramar, Florida.
The pilot, Glen Carpenter, spoke to Yanofsky before the piece was published, arguing that all sorts of FAA regulations are violated during a typical flight and that it would be impractical to enforce them.
You have to at least admire Glen Carpenter’s idealism. He’s so sure that the FAA’s regulations on flying millions of pounds of metal and jet fuel are really just suggestions that he’ll participate in a harassment campaign using his real name. You don’t always see that kind of commitment to internet harassment these days.
I mean, take a look at what Glen Carpenter writes under his real name on Facebook:
“I talked to this Fucktard [Yanofsky] for half hour yesterday… He’s truly an idiot,” Carpenter wrote on Facebook under the pseudonym Glen Christopher, though the account’s username is glen.carpenter.129.
…whoops. Well, I’m sure no one else noticed.
That account has been posting Yanofsky’s cell phone number and encouraging people to call it or text him photos taken in the cockpit.
Spirit spokesman Paul Berry confirmed the airline employs someone named Glen Carpenter and said, “We are taking this allegation seriously.” In a brief phone call, Carpenter denied that he works for Spirit and said he wasn’t the person going by Glen Christopher on Facebook.
Oh, honey.