US Airways has attempted to set the record straight as to how it came to tweet out its now infamous “planegina” image.
The picture – which revealed a naked woman with a toy plane protruding from her vagina – was tweeted to the account’s 428,000 followers in response to a passenger complaining about a delayed flight.
The image remained online for around half an hour before it was taken down with the explanation: “We apologise for an inappropriate image recently shared as a link in one of our responses. We’ve removed the tweet and are investigating.”
With the investigation now apparently complete, US Airways spokesman Matt Miller told the New York Daily News: “It was an honest mistake. It was in an attempt to flag the tweet as inappropriate.”
He added the image had originally been posted to their wall by an undisclosed user, flagged as inappropriate by the company and then accidentally posted in response to a customer.
He clarified the person responsible would not be fired.
So there you go: That’s the story of how planegina came bursting into your twitter feed.