US Airways managed a doozy of a Twitter fail on Monday when it accidentally tweeted a pornographic image in a reply to a customer.

The American airline tweeted the explicit image to an unhappy customer by mistake – but it took the firm nearly an hour to remove the post.

It's not the first time a corporate company has fallen foul of social media. Here are five of the biggest corporate Twitter fails:

1. #AskBG

Top tip for British Gas here: it's perhaps unwise to ask Twitter what they think of the company the very same day they announced an energy price hike of 9.2%. Except in October, they did exactly that.

We are here with our Customer Service Director, Bert Pijls, answering your questions until 2pm #AskBG pic.twitter.com/csbaqTfWwu — British Gas (@BritishGas) October 17, 2013

What started as an innocent Q&A with British Gas' customer service director Bert Pijls soon turned into a Twitter free-for-all.

.@BritishGas do u like strawberries also will the souls of hypothermic pensioners play on your conscience for eternity ? #AskBG — Matt Butler (@Mattbutler183) October 17, 2013

#AskBG Can you recommend a good energy supplier? — 500ml (@ncguk) October 17, 2013

Hi Bert, which items of furniture do you, in your humble opinion, think people should burn first this winter? #AskBG — Lee Vincent (@LeeJamesVincent) October 17, 2013

Following the Q&A, a spokesman said: "We always value interaction with our customers."

2. Angry HMV employee tweets during firing

If you're about to fire someone, it might be a good idea to change your company's Twitter password. HMV learnt this the hard way after an angry employee used the company's official Twitter account to tweet about mass layoffs at the company.

Screenshot of HMV's Twitter feed as an angry employee tweeted about being sacked. The tweets were later deleted. Photograph: /Screenshot Photograph: Screenshot

A woman named Poppy Rose Cleere, formerly the company's social media planner, later identified herself as the HMV employee behind the tweets. In a series of tweets, she said she felt someone had to speak and claimed senior employees "never seemed to grasp" the importance of social media.

I would apologise for the #hmvXFactorFiring tweets but I felt like someone had to speak. As someone without a family to support/no mortgage — Poppy Rose (@poppy_powers) January 31, 2013

I felt that I was the safest person to do so. Not to mention, I wanted to show the power of Social Media to those who refused to be educated — Poppy Rose (@poppy_powers) January 31, 2013

A pub in Oxfordshire found itself in a similar situation after it sacked its head chef. Jim Knight was fired as the head chef of The Plough after he asked for Christmas Day off – except the pub forgot that he had access to its official Twitter account.

3. MasterCard's #PricelessSurprises

It was meant to be a great campaign for MasterCard, coinciding with the Brits. They'd lined up all sorts of stars for videos, pictures and tweets before and during the ceremony.

Except the PR company managed to wind up a journalist at a national newspaper by attempting to tell him what he should tweet in return for accreditation to cover the event.

Please fellow journalists do not agree to the absurd conditions for covering @BRITAwards. I've even just been told what I should tweet. No. — Tim Walker (@ThatTimWalker) February 18, 2014

The demands sent by House PR included suggestions for tweets before, during and after the event, all with the hashtag #PricelessSurprises.

After the story broke on Press Gazette, the promoted hashtag was soon the home of much mirth and mocking from journalists and the public alike.

Good press coverage is hard to bribe. For everything else there's Mastercard. #PricelessSurprises — Felicity Morse (@FelicityMorse) February 19, 2014

Sponsored trend from Mastercard is currently helping people to find this: http://t.co/E6gTRp7wMd #PricelessSurprises pic.twitter.com/itznLSB6hR — Matt Rhodes (@mattrhodes) February 19, 2014

Bear in mind, you have to pay Twitter for a promoted tweet. Ouch.



4. Tesco "hits the hay" after the horsemeat scandal

It wasn't exactly the best couple of days for Tesco's social media team after it was revealed the supermarket had sold burgers containing horsemeat. It got a little bit worse after the social media account tweeted an unfortunate and unintended pun:

It's sleepy time so we're off to hit the hay! See you at 8am for more #TescoTweets — Tesco (@Tesco) January 17, 2013

The customer care account later tweeted its apologies:

@SophyRidgeSky I'm terribly sorry. That tweet was scheduled before we knew of the current situation. We'd never intend to make light of it. — Tesco (@Tesco) January 18, 2013

5. #susanalbumparty

It was meant to be an invite to the launch of Susan Boyle's new album. Instead, an unfortunate hashtag meant Twitter was invited to an entirely different kind of party than the one the singer's PR team had in mind.

Debunking site Is Twitter Wrong? tracked down the original tweet from Susan Boyle's official Twitter account, noting it was hastily changed to the more family-friendly #SusanBoyleAlbumParty.

Major discovery: #susanalbumparty was real! But it wasn't this week; it was sent on October 30 (and quickly corrected): pic.twitter.com/W4iCzv4F — Is Twit Wrong? (@IsTwitWrong) November 21, 2012

By then, it was definitely too late and there were mock-invites to Susan's party popping up left, right and centre.

Of course, we're sure there are plenty more where those came from. Share your favourite corporate Twitter fails in the comments below.