The mile high club (or MHC) is a slang term collectively applied to individuals who have engaged in sexual activity while on board an aircraft in flight at least 1 mile (5,280 ft/1,609 m AGL) above the Earth. There is no known formally constituted club so named. However, since "membership" of the "club" is really a matter of an individual asserting they have qualified, the qualifications for membership are open to some interpretation.

Some people attribute the allure of the club to the lower atmospheric pressure in the flight cabin, which they claim increases the intensity of orgasms.Fact: date=July 2008 Another explanation is the vibration of the airplane, which may make arousal easier. Others say they have fantasies about pilots or flight attendants, or a fetish about planes themselves. For many others, perhaps the majority, the appeal of joining the MHC is the thrill of doing something taboo and the thrill of the risk of being discovered.

History

In November of 1916 Lawrence Sperry reportedly was engaged in sexual activity with a woman while he was flying in his Curtiss flying boat over Babylon, New York, when they crashed (non-fatally) into the water. His status as founding member of the club is a retrospective honour derived from the fact that he and his unknown friend were the first persons reported to have engaged in aerial sexual activity, and from his association with the development of the autopilot at Sperry Corporation. It is not a literal honor, since they crashed from an altitude of only 500 feet (152 m), and also because the term "Mile High Club" was not in use at the time.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has ruled that at least one accident was caused by a pilot engaging in sexual activity while piloting a small plane.

Noted instances

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

• 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. Both lost their jobs after the press storm following the incident.

• 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.CNN.com, "Mile high club? Indictment alleges sex on a plane", November 14 2006. The couple's lawyer claims that the couple was not engaging in sexual activity, but that the man was sick and resting his head on the woman's lap.