Video Of Folk Band Playing On Plane Stuck On Runway For 10 Hours Has People Never Wanting To Fly Again
The band was just trying to pass the time, but it's making people feel like joining the no-fly list.
@mattxiv/Twitter There just no way around it—airline travel is basically a nightmare.
From rude seatmates to people traveling with unruly kids and seemingly constant delays—even for celebrities—it seems there's always something that goes wrong.
And sometimes, even the kind, good people on the plane figure out how to make a bad flight situation even worse, despite their good intentions—as planeful of people in Iceland recently learned.
A folk band recently played a concert aboard a plane to cheer up passengers stranded on a runway in Iceland for 10 hours.
The plane couldn't take off due to weather concerns so the band decided to provide some in-flight entertainment. However, the video has people never wanting to fly again.
The video shows self-described "folk roots artist" Jessica Pearson and her bandmates doing a rendition of John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads" in the aisle of their plane to Iceland.
Onscreen text in Pearson's since-deleted video details that they were "stranded on our plane...for 10 hours due to 115 [kilometer] winds."
That's about 71 miles per hour, just three miles per hour shy of the U.S.'s National Weather Service 74 mph definition of hurricane-force winds—definitely a serious situation.
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Iceland's Reyjavik Keflavik airport recently suffered a spate of major delays due to winds so violent the airport's jet bridges couldn't be used.
This left several US-originating flights on Iceland's national airline Icelandair stranded on the tarmac for hours after they landed around 6:00am.
There's no denying that Pearson and her band are talented—their gorgeous rendition of Denver's hit is just one video of tons on their TikTok full of beautiful music performances.
And they weren't without their fans onboard the Icelandair flight either—several passengers applauded when they finished, and a few could be heard singing along.
But on social media, Jessica Pearson and the East Wind's impromptu airplane folk concert left most people slack-jawed.
Several people joked that a stunt like Pearson's during a 10-hour delay would leave them so unable to cope they'd end up on the TSA's "no-fly list."
One Twitter user who watched the video quipped, "this is literally terrorism."
Another person wrote, "Sorry, I’m going for the emergency exit. I don’t care we’re at 31,000ft. I’ll take my chances," while another theorized that the "bathroom is full of people hiding."
One TikToker joked that they "would've offered to fly the plane," while several others thanked Pearson for reminding them not to forget that all-important piece of travel gear when flying—noise-canceling headphones.
Still, not everyone objected to Pearson's gesture. Many complimented Pearson and her bands' undeniable talent, while others pointed out they surely only played for a few minutes at most.
And several thought Pearson's performance would have brightened their spirits.
As one Twitter user put it, "What sucks is getting stuck on a runway for hours. A single, light-hearted song probably lifted peoples' spirits. Everyone but the party poopers that is."
However, Jessica Pearson's team is adamant that her impromptu performance was well-received.
According to a statement shared by Willow Sounds Records, the video has been taken out of context.
"After about 6 hours of being grounded, the pilot asked the girls if they would sing for the passengers having noticed their instruments upon boarding. The girls were happy to help in any way possible. They performed a few original songs and then started taking requests," the statement reads.
"The crew asked if the girls would move to the front of the plane for a few songs because passengers there wanted to hear them as well. The whole session lasted 45 mins. It lifted the mood and helped pass the time. The crew and passengers gave the girls chocolate and compliments and when finally deboarding, passengers clapped for them, tagged them in their own videos on socials and thanked them for playing. People stopped the girls in the airport to compliment and thank them."
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.