US Airways launched an internal investigation on Monday after an explicit image was included in a tweet posted from its official Twitter account in response to a customer complaint, BBC News reported.
The airline quickly apologized and said it was a mistake. It stated that the obscene photo was going to be flagged as inappropriate, but was mistakenly included in a message instead.
Although the tweet was deleted in an hour, hundreds of people had already retweeted the pornographic image by then.
"The image, which featured a naked woman and a toy plane, had originally been sent to the company's Twitter account by another user, it said," BBC News reported.
"It was then attached to a tweet that was sent to a US Airways customer who had taken to the social network to express her frustration that her flight was delayed."
However, as soon as the airline realized its mistake, the offending tweet was deleted and an apology was quickly conveyed.
"We apologize for an inappropriate image recently shared as a link in one of our responses. We've removed the tweet and are investigating," it said on its Twitter feed.
A Twitter controversy dealing with American Airlines, which is merged with US Airways, made national headlines on Monday after a 14-year old Dutch girl sent a tweet to the airline implying she was part of al-Qaeda group and planning an attack, BBC News reported.
The girl's tweet was immediately picked up by American Airlines, who informed the girl that threats were taken seriously by their company and that her details would be passed on to the FBI for further investigation.
Later on, the tweets were deleted and the girl's Twitter account has been suspended.
According to the Washington Post, other teenagers' Twitter accounts have started bombarding American Airlines with copycat tweets after the occurrence of the incident.
