American Airlines Flight Attendant Arrested for Filming Teenage Girl in Airplane Bathroom
An American Airlines flight attendant has been arrested for allegedly filming a teenage girl in an airplane bathroom during a flight to Boston last year. The incident occurred in September while Estes Carter Thompson III, 37, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was working a flight from Charlotte to Boston.
Thompson was taken into custody in Virginia and has been charged with attempted sexual exploitation of children and possession of child pornography depicting a prepubescent minor. In addition to the September incident, Thompson was found to have recordings of four other minor female passengers in bathrooms on planes where he was working.
Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy expressed his concern over the disturbing conduct alleged in this case, stating that protecting children is a top priority for his office. He assured that they will aggressively investigate and hold accountable those who victimize children.
According to the US Attorney’s Office, Thompson hid his iPhone under stickers inside a plane toilet lid during the September incident. He directed a 14-year-old girl to use the bathroom and then re-entered immediately after she left. The girl took a photo of the phone on the toilet seat and showed it to her parents, who reported the issue to other flight attendants.
Once the plane landed in Boston, an investigation was launched. Law enforcement discovered that Thompson’s phone had been restored to factory settings. Further investigation revealed four additional instances between January and August of 2023 where Thompson recorded a minor using the lavatory on an aircraft. Authorities also found AI-generated child pornography and images of a nine-year-old unaccompanied minor in Thompson’s iCloud account.
All minor victims in this case have been identified, and their families have been contacted by law enforcement. Thompson is expected to appear in federal court in Boston at a later date.
The family of the 14-year-old girl involved in the September incident filed a lawsuit against American Airlines last year, alleging that the company should have known the flight attendant was a danger. American Airlines responded by stating that the flight attendant had been withheld from service since the incident and that they take these allegations very seriously.
The attorney for the girl’s family expressed disappointment with American Airlines’ lack of response and emphasized that this is just the start of the criminal justice process.
(Note: This content has been rewritten and does not contain any copyrighted material from CNN or Sunbeam Television.)
