We wrote over the weekend on an alleged incident covered by an Associated Press reporter in which a Southwest Airlines pilot was said to have uttered the wildly popular “Let’s go, Brandon” phrase over the plane’s intercom system during a greeting he gave to passengers on a Houston-to-Albuquerque flight last Friday.
Here’s how reporter Colleen Long described what she says she heard in a piece on how the chant “became code for insulting Joe Biden”:
The pilot of a Southwest Southwest flight between Houston and Albuquerque signed his greetings over the public audio system. Some passengers gasped as he used the phrase “To audible gasps” to get the message across. Southwest said in a statement that the airline “takes pride in providing a welcoming, comfortable, and respectful environment” and that “behavior from any individual that is divisive or offensive is not condoned.”
In response to the AP story, numerous news websites like the Daily Mail referenced (but did not link to) a “TikTok” video as evidence that the unidentified pilot gave a greeting to passengers and concluded his message what with “Let’s go, Brandon.”
These websites didn’t include a link to the video so intrepid internet sleuths such as yours truly went Google and discovered what we believed was the pilot that the AP reporter claimed she saw. The clip purportedly shows a pilot with his face digitally obscured ending his greeting with what sounded like “Let’s go, Brandon.” The words “Let’s go, Brandon” also appeared on the screen. Because of that, people were listening for ” Let’s go, Brandon” to be said, and that’s what they thought they heard.
But, what virtually nobody except me noticed was that the TikTok’s date was not October Friday as the AP reporter claims she heard.
Further, upon listening to it a little more carefully, the video is clipped right as what was initially thought to be “Brandon” was being said. You hear “Let’s go, bra –.” In other words, maybe it wasn’t “Brandon” the pilot was allegedly saying, but something else – like maybe “Let’s go, Braves.”
Because Southwest Airlines is now “investigating” this matter, perhaps we’ll learn more in the coming days weeks as to what – if anything – actually related to “Let’s go, Brandon” transpired on the flight the AP reporter was on, if maybe the pilot she says she heard Friday was the same one in that TikTok clip, and so on.
I have to admit when I first heard about the double-take some were doing over the story Monday, I got to wondering why there would allegedly be “audible gasps” from the passengers as the AP reporter said there was if the pilot had said something like “Let’s go, Braves.” But then I thought about it more and it made sense.
*If* that’s what the pilot said, then, of course, there would likely be “audible gasps” since he was taking off from Houston (for non-sports people: The Atlanta Braves and the Houston Astros are currently battling it out in the World Series. Atlanta is leading the series at 3-1. Houston will host the next game of the best 7 series tonight.
In any event, we’ll continue to keep you posted on how this story develops, especially as it relates to the eventual findings of that Southwest Airlines investigation into the matter.
That said, if it’s determined that the pilot was actually saying something else other than “Brandon,” there will be egg on a whole lot of faces on the left, many of who publicly flipped out over this story and ridiculed and smeared the alleged pilot, insinuating he had a substance abuse problem and called for passengers to actually file a complaint with the FAA because apparently, the FAA has nothing better to do than to massage the feelings of those suffering from Hurt Feelings Syndrome.
Keep checking back, just like always.
See also: The Most ‘Cry Harder’ CNN Translation for ‘Let’s Go, Brandon’ Has Arrived
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