American Airlines In Damage Control Over Embarrassing Legal Filings

American Airlines is walking back on legal filings that claimed a 9-year-old girl was responsible for allowing herself to be secretly filmed in an aircraft restroom by a male flight attendant. The airline is now saying the legal papers were filed by an outside legal counsel and the allegation that the harm to the child resulted through her “own fault and negligence” was “an error.”

The story began last September when another 14-year-old girl was escorted to a restroom on an American flight by 37-year-old flight attendant Estes Thompson III. Thompson reportedly told her he needed to wash his hands before she went in and concealed his cellphone inside the restroom to record the girl. She spotted the phone and took a picture of it with her own phone, leading to the arrest of Thompson. It was later revealed that Thompson had previously recorded video of four other young girls, including the 9-year-old involved in the legal filings.

On learning of the language in the legal filing, the girl’s mother said in a statement, “Instead of taking responsibility for this awful event, American Airlines is actually blaming our daughter for being filmed. How in good conscience could they even make such a suggestion? It both shocks and angers us. American Airlines has no shame.”

American subsequently issued a statement: “Our outside legal counsel retained with our insurance company made an error in this filing. The included defense is not representative of our airline and we have directed it be amended this morning. We do not believe this child is at fault and we take the allegations involving a former team member very seriously. Our core mission is to care for people—and the foundation of that is the safety and security of our customers and team.”