Mile high club

An airplane lavatory

The mile-high club is slang for the people who have had sexual intercourse on board of an aircraft.[1]

An alleged explanation for the act is the supposed vibration of the plane, which may lead to sexual arousal among men.[2] Some say they have fantasies about pilots or flight attendants, or a fetish about planes themselves.[3] For others, the appeal of joining the mile-high club is the thrill of doing something taboo and the thrill of the risk of being discovered.[4]

History

An early reference to the concept is found in the betting book for Brooks's, a London gentlemen's club. The 1785 entry (only two years after the first successful balloon ascent by Étienne Montgolfier) reads: "Ld. Cholmondeley has given two guineas to Ld. Derby, to receive 500 Gs whenever his lordship has sex with a woman in a balloon one thousand yards from the Earth."[5] (However, there is no further indication that the bet was paid, or even how they would check it if it was claimed.)

During the First World War, German Ace Oswald Boelcke was disciplined by superiors for taking a nurse up in the cockpit of his fighter, allegedly becoming the first person to qualify as a member of the club.[6]

A website using the name "Mile High Club" regards the "Club's" "founder" as pilot and design engineer Lawrence Sperry,[7] along with "socialite Mrs. Waldo Peirce" (Dorothy Rice Sims) [8] citing their flight in an autopilot-equipped Curtiss Flying Boat near New York in November 1916.[9][10][11] The American transportation authority NTSB reports one case in which sexual activity is at least partly responsible for an aviation accident.[12]

In November 2007, the BBC reported a story headlined "Airline Bans A380 Mile-High Club" about a measure taken by Singapore Airlines. The Airbus A380's twelve first class cabins have double beds, but they are not soundproof. Shortly after the introduction of the cabins the airline asked first-class passengers to respect the other passengers.[13]

Frequency

One survey in the 2010s found that 9% of Americans have had a sexual encounter in an airplane seat, 17% in the airplane bathroom, 5% with a stranger on an airplane, and 3% with a crew member.[14]

Noted instances

Some incidents of people attempting sexual activity on planes have become popularly known:

  • Richard Branson, the British billionaire entrepreneur and owner of Virgin Atlantic Airways and Virgin America Airways, claimed that he joined the mile-high club at age 19 (c. 1969) in the plane's lavatory. Afterwards, he found out that his partner in the act was married, and the two had no relationship beyond the encounter in the plane.[15]
  • In October 1999, two passengers of an American Airlines flight from Dallas to Manchester were arrested after engaging in "sex acts" in front of other passengers in the business class section of the aircraft.[16][17] Both lost their jobs after the press storm following the incident.[18]
  • A 2005 British Airways flight from London to Jamaica diverted to Bermuda when Trevor Blake and Nicola Fitzpatrick, a couple on board, who had possibly been intoxicated even before consuming more beer and wine on the plane, threatened flight attendants after they told them to return to their seats when the attendants found Fitzpatrick giving a lap dance to Blake in a crew jump seat; the two ultimately had to be physically confined to their seats. The two claimed later they had already had sex twice in the aircraft lavatory before that; after their arrest and return to the U.K. Blake was sentenced to prison and Fitzpatrick to community service.[19][20][21]
  • In late 2006, a couple was arrested in part for refusing to stop overt sexual activity on a flight in a case that received widespread media attention.[22] The couple's lawyer claims that the couple were not engaging in sexual activity, but that the man was sick and resting his head on the woman's lap.
  • On 11 February 2007, Lisa Robertson, a Qantas flight attendant, was dismissed after having sex with actor Ralph Fiennes in a business class lavatory during a flight from Darwin to Mumbai on 24 January 2007. Robertson at first denied the allegation, but subsequently admitted the encounter in an interview with the British Daily Mail tabloid. She also said she had stayed with Fiennes at his Mumbai hotel.[23]

Legality

The BBC ran an article investigating whether sex on a plane was legal. Their conclusion was that it would depend on many factors, such as whether or not the act occurred in sight of others. If British law applied, for example, it may constitute sex in lavatory to which the public has access, contrary to Sexual Offences Act 2003 s.71, with a maximum 6-month term.

Also, for international flights, the law could vary depending on departure and destination cities and the nation of the carrier airline,[24] as well as the country of registration of the aircraft, and possibly the citizenship of the people involved.

In January 2011, the United Kingdom's aviation regulator body, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), refused to recertify Mile-High Flights, an air charter company located in Gloucestershire for allowing its passengers to have sex while in-flight.[25]

Charter flights

Some commercial enterprises cash in on people's interest in joining the club by offering special charter[26] flights designed for the purpose[27] or by selling souvenir certificates and other items.[28] Some web sites also provide resources such as historical information about the club.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Hestor, Eliot Neal (21 September 1999). "Welcome to the Mile-High Club". Salon. Retrieved 2007-01-06.
  2. ↑ Rob Woodburn (24 May 2006). "Sex at high altitude". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2007-01-06.
  3. ↑ Lovegrove, Keith (2000). Airline: Identity, Design & Culture. New York: Te Neues Publishing Company. ISBN 978-3-8238-5460-9. OCLC 247769755. Retrieved 2007-01-05.
  4. ↑ "Sex: caught at it". TheSite.org. Archived from the original on 4 January 2007. Retrieved 2007-01-05.
  5. ↑ L. G. Mitchell's biography of Charles James Fox. Quoted in Google Books
  6. ↑ Ross, John F., Enduring Courage: Ace Pilot Eddie Rickenbacker and The Dawn of the Era of Speed. New York NY: St Martin's Press, 2014. p 147
  7. ↑ Sperry Inc. History Archived 25 November 2010 at the Wayback Machine.. Sperryinc.com. Retrieved on 2011-11-17.
  8. ↑ About MHC: Founding Member Archived 18 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine.. Milehighclub.com (1997-10-13). Retrieved on 2011-11-17.
  9. ↑ "FROM HER SICK BED PLANS NEW FLIGHTS; Mrs. Pierce(sic), in a Plaster Cast, Gives Orders to Have Her Aeroplane Ready. TELLS OF FALLING 800 FEET; Aviatrice Says it Was 'Very Funny' When She and Sperry Went Into the Water Off Babylon". The New York Times. New York, New York. November 28, 1916. p. 24. Although she fell 800 feet in a hydro-aeroplane and was held fast for more than a minute in mud and wreckage seven feet under water, and suffered a fracture of the pelvis and other injuries, Mrs. Waldo Pierce(sic), daughter of Mrs. Isaac L. Rice, donor of the $1,000,000 fund for the Isaac L. Rice Hospital for Convalescents, has no intention of giving up flying.
  10. ↑ Check-Six.com – The First at a "Mile-High"
  11. ↑ John Baxter (10 February 2009). Carnal Knowledge: Baxter's Concise Encyclopedia of Modern Sex. HarperCollins. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-06-087434-6. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
  12. ↑ NTSB Identification: MIA92FA051. Ntsb.gov (1991-12-23). Retrieved on 2015-01-11.
  13. ↑ ''Airline bans A380 mile-high club'') ''BBC News'' online, 31 October 2007. BBC News (2007-10-31). Retrieved on 2011-11-17.
  14. ↑ Christopher Muther (12 September 2018). "Had sex on a plane? Who's most likely to get drunk on a flight? It's the wonderful, clickable world of travel surveys". The Boston Globe.
  15. ↑ Agence France-Presse, "I'm no mile-high club virgin", AFP, 29 July 2007.
  16. ↑ Cullen, Drew. (1999-10-05) Sex shame at 30,000 ft exec puts Nortel tagline into practice. Theregister.co.uk. Retrieved on 2011-11-17.
  17. ↑ Flight attendant report, B767-300, dfw-Manchester, England, couple engaged in sex acts would not stop when ordered to by crew. Arrested by Manchester police. 37000feet.com. Retrieved on 2011-11-17.
  18. ↑ Fine for drunken plane couple. BBC News (2000-04-05). Retrieved on 2011-11-17.
  19. ↑ "Jail terms for plane fracas pair". BBC News. June 8, 2007. Retrieved November 27, 2017.
  20. ↑ "BA sex couple sentenced in U.K. court". Bermuda Sun. June 13, 2007. Retrieved November 27, 2017. The Guardian reported how cabin crew saw the pair acting drunk with Fitzgerald gyrating her hips on Blake's groin as they sat on a seat reserved for cabin crew.
  21. ↑ "Mile-high pair admit air rage". Metro. May 14, 2007. Retrieved November 27, 2017.
  22. ↑ FindLaw.com, "Mile high club? Indictment alleges sex on a plane", 11 October 2006.
  23. ↑ Air stewardess: secrets of my five-mile high sex romp with Ralph Fiennes. the Mail on Sunday (2007-02-17). Retrieved on 2011-11-17.
  24. ↑ "Is sex on a plane legal?". BBC News. 14 February 2007. Retrieved 2007-02-14.
  25. ↑ "Sex Flights Gets Grounded By The Civil Aviation Authority". AvStop.com. Retrieved 2011-01-26.
  26. ↑ MileHighClub.com, Mile High Flight Referrals Archived 11 December 2006 at the Wayback Machine. page.
  27. ↑ Kitty Bean Yancy (8 September 2006). "A flight that goes all the way". USA Today. Retrieved 2006-10-03.
  28. ↑ "MileHighClub.com". Retrieved 2006-10-03.

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