A tourist has captured a near-disaster during their helicopter flight over the Grand Canyon.
TikTok user Cherlin95 posted the video online yesterday and it’s since gone viral, already being viewed millions of times.
In the video, a tourist in the front seat tries to grab a lever during their flight, obviously not realizing the seriousness of what she’s doing.
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After the woman attempts to grab the lever, we see the pilot grabbing her wrist and saying “no no no, that will kill us”.
As it turns out, the lever the passenger almost pulled activates a brake that slows down the rotor that’s responsible for keeping the helicopter in the air.
The video has unsurprisingly garnered thousands of comments.
Some helicopter pilots weighed in too, explaining the danger of what almost happened.
“All safety measures go out the window if that brake is activated,” one said.
“So it’s a big no no. Nobody touches that handle, not even the pilot. You only touch it when the helicopter’s on the ground.”
Another weighed in, saying if they were the pilot they would have taken the tourists “straight back to the landing pad, with no refund”.
“Tour would be over after that,” they said.
Others had a less serious reaction.
“Lol he corrects her like I do my 13-week-old puppy,” one said.
“That’s exactly how my dad yelled at me when I turned the lights on in the car while he was driving,” another guy said.
Meanwhile, some saw things from the passenger’s perspective.
“Maybe I’m naive, maybe I’m playing devil’s advocate, but I can kind of see how the pilot’s action could have been seen as a gesture to hold or even pull what he touched. Like he was saying ‘put your hand here’,” one woman said.
Another agreed, saying “it looks like he was telling her to hold it so I get the confusion”.
Others were just confused as to why the lever was so easily accessible to passengers if it was so dangerous.
“Why would they put the ‘kill everybody’ lever in a very obvious place? Why not have that on the pilot’s side?” they said.
Others agreed, saying it’s “not the best spot for a deadly lever”.
Watch the full vid here!
Regardless, it’s a relief the tourist was stopped before anything terrible actually happened.
Perhaps they should put a big ‘do not touch’ sticker on that ‘kill lever’ from now on?
