There’s nothing more irritating than being stuck on a long flight with irritating noises that you can’t escape, whether it’s a baby crying or someone deciding to blast music without using their headphones.
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But for passengers onboard a September 6 American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Dallas, the irritation came from ominous and disturbing groaning sounds over the public intercom system.
Actor Emerson Collins recently went viral on TikTok for documenting the flight and the bizarre sounds that were coming from the plane’s intercom. The video has close to a million views.
“Someone on this flight seems to have broken into the intercom system and continues to make a sound that is somewhere between an orgasm and vomiting,” Collins tells viewers.
Weirdest. Flight. EVER!
The sounds in the video continue before the flight attendants make an announcement.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we realize there is an extremely irritating sound coming over the public announcement system. The flight deck is trying to troubleshoot, trying to turn it off so please be patient,” the flight attendant says. “We know this is a very odd anomaly and none of us are enjoying it.”
“I was convinced that someone on our flight was having a great time,” Collins told Gizmodo, noting that he realized it couldn’t have been another passenger “making these sounds audibly, or the people around them would notice.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, this marks the third reported similar incident where passengers were susceptible to bizarre sounds coming over the flight intercom.
The internet, of course, has theories. Jokes ranged from the pilot falling asleep and having sleep apnea to someone hacking the intercom from the bathroom.
“This is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen recorded on a plane,” one viewer even wrote.
Collins says that there has been “no real explanation yet” as to what exactly happened, though American Airlines did tell Newsweek that there is no Wi-Fi on the planes’ intercom systems meaning that a hack would have been close to impossible.
“The PA systems onboard our aircraft are hardwired and there is no external access,” American Airlines spokesperson Sarah Jantz said. “Following the initial report, our maintenance team thoroughly inspected the aircraft and the PA system and determined the sounds were caused by a mechanical issue with the PA amplifier, which raises the volume of the PA system when the engines are running. Our team is reviewing the additional reports.”
Entrepreneur reached out to American Airlines for additional comment.