American Airlines flight attendant sued over allegedly recording child

An American Airlines flight attendant allegedly secretly filmed a 9-year-old Austin girl using the bathroom on her flight, capturing images and videos of her bare bottom and genitals on his personal phone. Now, her family is suing the airline and the attendant for emotional damages. 

The flight attendant, Estes Carter Thompson III, has been accused of filming at least five people going to the bathroom during his flights, including two underage girls from Austin. Thompson, who is not a Texan, is in federal custody in Boston on charges of sexual exploitation of children and possession of child pornography depicting a prepubescent minor.

The Austin family filing the lawsuit was on a January 26, 2023 flight from the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport on their way to Los Angeles for a gymnastics competition and a visit to Disneyland. During the flight, the child went to use the bathroom, but Thompson allegedly stopped her before she went into the lavatory to “clean up a mess.” The lawsuit alleges that he went into the bathroom, shut the door, and emerged a few minutes later before the girl went inside to use the toilet.

The family did not become aware of the recording until almost a year later, when the FBI knocked on their door and presented the horrific news that images of their daughter’s face, buttocks, and genitals were stored on the American Airlines employee’s iCloud account. 

“What began as a memorable family trip has become an inescapable nightmare,” the lawsuit reads. “The child has suffered severe emotional distress as a result of the incident including symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, fearfulness, insomnia and nightmares. This emotional distress has had a fundamental impact on her interpersonal relationships, her schooling, and her ability to function in the world. Every area of the child’s life has been affected by Defendants’ actions and inactions.”

The lawsuit alleges that the airline was aware or should have been aware that the employee was a danger to its customers because of Thompson’s suspicious actions. Those actions allegedly included taking pieces of red catering tape onto irrelevant flights, bringing the tape into the bathroom when it is not used in that area, saying there was a “mess” in the lavatory when other flight attendants should have known there was not, telling the child to wait outside the bathroom before she used it, and loitering outside the toilet while she used it and entering immediately after she left.

Other American Airlines employees had allegedly complained about Thompson’s inappropriate and sexual actions to their employers before he filmed the 9-year-old Austin girl, yet the airline did not adequately investigate, increase supervision of, or report Thompson. The lawsuit even alleges that U.S. Customs and Border Patrol had stopped Thompson for “possession of inappropriate material and/or for inappropriate, sexual conduct prior to his filming of Mary Doe,” and the airline continued to employ him.    
                                                     
“Mary Doe is jumpy, nervous, and fearful in her interactions with other people,” the lawsuit reads of the Austin girl. “She is also consistently worried about being in public by herself. For example, she is concerned that other bathrooms may have video cameras in them and is fearful of using bathrooms outside of her home.”

Filed in the Travis County District Court on Tuesday, February 6, the lawsuit is asking for financial relief in excess of $1 million for the emotional damages sustained by the child and her family.