An investigation is underway after staff at Aberdeen Airport were spotted dancing during a live news bulletin, as the world awaited news of Queen Elizabeth II.
Shortly after midday on Thursday, Buckingham Palace announced that Queen Elizabeth II was under "medical supervision" at Balmoral following concerns from her doctors about her health.
Due to the rarity of such a public admission from the Palace, BBC News halted all programming and reported live about the Queen's condition.
Several hours later, it was revealed that several members of the Royal Family had flown to Aberdeen Airport in order to be with Her Majesty. The Queen's grandson, Prince William, and her sons Prince Andrew and the Earl of Wessex were seen disembarking an RAF aircraft and boarding awaiting cars, before making the drive to Balmoral.
The moment was shown live by BBC News, but several viewers suddenly became distracted by two airport staff members on the bottom-right of their screens.
As newsreader Huw Edwards kept the nation updated, the two employees - one dressed in a high visibility uniform - could be seen waving and then dancing on screen. (The particular dance being "flossing", which was recently popularized by the Fortnite Battle Royale video game.)
The moment was captured by viewers and promptly shared to Twitter, where one person said the workers were "mocking" the situation.
One outraged Twitter user wrote: "They are working, this behavior reflects on their employer too. Disgusting behavior at such a time. Silly at its basic (and these people have air-side responsibilities), grossly offensive to many at another level."
Tweeting the airport's account directly, one Twitter user wrote: "And what is being done to the two staff members caught disgracefully flossing live on the news!!! It’s all good and well saying this but clearly they don’t when them two have no respect or decorum especially while working and clearly knowing what was happening at said time!!!"
Another Twitter user wrote: "@ABZ_Airport think you need to make your staff take a course on respect. Flossing whilst the royal family are arriving to be with our Queen is the lowest of low."
To which, representatives for the airport replied: "We are aware of this incident and investigations are already ongoing."
Speaking to Newsweek, a spokesperson for the airport once again confirmed that an investigation was underway, telling the outlet: "We are aware of this incident and investigations are already ongoing."
Newsweek adds that the spokesperson emphasized that there are many companies that operate at the airport and it is still unknown which one the two workers are employed by.
The death of Queen Elizabeth II was announced just hours after the incident.
However, many people have rushed to the defense of the two workers, with one Twitter user writing: "The only disgrace here is even thinking about investigating this. Get a grip."
A second added: "They have probably had a text asking if that's them on telly so in the spur of the moment they've done a silly thing, they may well have had no idea how serious things are, please leave alone, sometimes it's moments like this that keep up morale in a workplace going."
