Two Austral Lineas airline pilots were fired after they appeared in selfie photos taken midflight with a sexy model in the cockpit and posted on Twitter.
Patricio Zocchi Molina and Federico Matias Soaje were sacked by parent company Aerolíneas Argentinas on June 25, three days after the flight and one day after the photos popped up on social media,
reported ABC News.
Model Viky Xipolitakis was all smiles with Molina and Soaje in photos she posted on Twitter where cockpit controls could be seen in the background, noted ABC News.
"These are responsibilities that have put lives at risk," Aerolíneas Argentinas head Mariano Recalde told the
Buenos Aires Herald. "As soon as we became aware of the situation, we dismissed the pilots. They are two irresponsible people who put at risk the security of people and we will request justice to investigate, as the 190 article of the Penal Code expresses."
Recalde told
C5N TV that Xipolitakis will face sanctions by the airline for being in the cockpit, and Aerolíneas Argentinas said Xipolitakis will be banned from both Aerolineas and Austral flights for the next five years.
"We will act firmly because nothing justifies what happened, and it will have to be analyzed whether they committed a crime," said Recalde.
Xipolitakis has denied there was a political motivation behind the release of the photos, though Recalde is running for mayor of Buenos Aires.
"I never thought I could cause such harm," she posted on Twitter. "I am deeply sad. I had a wonderful experience in the flight and never thought it could cause such fuss. I didn't do it with malice or second intentions.
"I make a reality show out of my life… I didn't know I couldn't go into the cockpit. The pilots should have told me not to. Now I recon my life has been in danger," Xipolitakis added.
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