A Dutch teenager known only as Sarah tweeted a dangerously stupid joke Sunday afternoon, telling American Airlines that she was an al-Qaeda member gearing up for a terrorist attack in June. The airline didn't take the tweet in stride; after dressing Sarah down, it proceeded to forward her IP address to the FBI, resulting in her arrest this morning in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Now, however, other teenagers have started lobbing bomb threats at American Airlines. Somewhat incongruously, those joking threats spiraled into an explicit photo being tweeted by US Airways in the process.
Tweets that mirrored Sarah's original tweet started coming in this morning, aimed at American Airlines (and even others like Southwest) and all as if to dare the companies to report them to the authorities.
@AmericanAir You really seem to not care that i'm about to bomb your plane that's headed to Paris. Btw, my name is Ahmed.
— Allie (@ComedyBatman) April 14, 2014
However, one user went so far as to taunt the airline by asking American Airlines why a plane wound up in her vagina with a very NSFW picture. That particular taunt somehow wound up in a series of support tweets sent out by US Airways. Though the tweet has long been deleted, it made the rounds on Twitter like wildfire.
cbgdgrs "@dailydot: US Airways actually tweeted the most NSFW photo imaginable: http://t.co/o775UXkhEx pic.twitter.com/Kct9onQQe6"
— (@ARTxDEALER) April 14, 2014
We apologize for an inappropriate image recently shared as a link in one of our responses. We’ve removed the tweet and are investigating.
— US Airways (@USAirways) April 14, 2014
It's currently unclear how or why the picture was attached in the now-deleted tweet. US Airways has issued an apology and is investigating the matter, despite it by now being a complete PR nightmare. As for repercussions for the teens involved, that's still up in the air.