FAA probing Harlem Shake on Frontier Airlines Flight 157
The sky might in fact be the limit for the Harlem Shake.
The Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday said it is investigating a video, titled “Harlem Shake Frontier Flight 157,” that shows Colorado College’s ultimate Frisbee team doing the meme with their fellow passengers.
The Harlem Shake is a viral video craze that has exploded in the last month. Most videos show one person dancing alone, with others suddenly joining about 15 seconds into the song. Most videos contain people in costumes and masks.
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The “Frontier Flight 157” version is very much the same except for the fact that it took place in the sky in the middle of a flight.
“That was my Ultimate Frisbee team and a bunch of random people as well,” said senior team captain Dan Eppstein, 21. “Everyone who was on that flight joined in.”
Eppstein said the team asked a Frontier Airlines flight attendant if it was OK to shoot the video. They then asked the permission of everyone else on the flight and no one said they would mind.
A spokeswoman for Frontier Airlines confirmed the FAA investigation. She said the airline couldn’t comment but did say that “all safety measures were followed and the seat belt sign was off.”
The video shows a couple of people wearing a mask and one person with a banana costume. After the song’s bass drops, the video gets very shaky, which might be why the FAA is conducting its investigation.
But Eppstein said the video’s shakiness was actually a result of poor camera work.
“It was totally safe,” he said.
The ultimate Frisbee team was on its way to San Diego for its first tournament of the season. Although the team didn’t do as well as it would have liked, Eppstein didn’t blame the poor outing on the Harlem Shake. Instead, the meme seems to have been good for building team chemistry.
“We got to give credit to the underclassmen who organized it all,” he said. “They were the ones that brought the costumes on the plane.”
It may be the last time anyone gets to Harlem Shake at 35,000 feet.
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