Audio By Carbonatix
Frontier is known to be a less-than-stellar budget airline. But have its safety standards stooped so low that it’s willing to duct tape a plane together and send it on its way? That’s what one customer claimed in a viral TikTok.
In the video, Atlanta creator @thestarrexperience_ films an airline worker in a yellow hazard vest as they apply what looks like duct tape to a seam near the wing ahead of their flight. “Watched frontier [duct] tape the wing,” the on-screen caption reads. The trending “Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday” sound plays.
‘Speed Tape Is Strong Enough To Hold Your Life Together’
In the comments section, viewers assured the TikToker that she had nothing to worry. They claimed it was no ordinary duct tape that the worker was using. It was speed tape.
“Speed tape. Stronger then steel when in the air,” one said.
A second wrote, “its speed tape this is routine for aircraft maintenance yall will be fine.”
Still, some didn’t like the idea of tape of any kind being used on a plane.
“Speed tape is fine. Says my pilot friend. I still don’t trust it,” one remarked.
“Yall sayin ‘it’s speed tape’ I ain’t trusting NO TAPE holding my plane together,” a second said.
What Is Speed Tape?
According to the Miami Herald, speed tape, or aluminum tape, is “a material that is used to help streamline the plane when a section becomes exposed to the airstream.”
John Nance, a pilot and safety consultant, told the Washington Post that garden variety duct tape will never be used on a plane. “So if you’re looking at it, it’s called speed tape, and it’s very, very specifically designed to do whatever it is they’re trying to make it do,” he said.
He added that it’s not a permanent fix. But it’s a perfectly safe temporary solution to use until the plane can be properly fixed.
“This is usually skin, but you don’t want anything peeling back further than it might already have started peeling back,” he told the Post. “There’s just no way this day and time to explain to passengers. They think you’re holding the airplane together with baling wire and Scotch tape.”
In addition to being used in aviation, speed tape is used in the automotive, construction, and electronics industries as well as the military.
This Isn’t The First Time Passengers Have Spotted Speed Tape And Freaked Out
As the Miami Herald reported, in 2023, a passenger caught a Spirit Airlines worker affixing speed tape to a plane’s wing in a viral TikTok. Viewers questioned why the TikToker remained on the plane after seeing what appeared to them to be a shoddy duct tape fix.
BroBible has contacted the TikToker via comment and direct message. It contacted Frontier via press email.
Content shared from brobible.com.