Flight attendant accused of spying on minors in airplane bathroom, FBI says

ORLANDO, Fla. - An American Airlines attendant has been arrested, accused of using his phone to secretly record minors in an airplane lavatory.

North Carolina resident Estes Thompson III, 36, was arrested in Lynchburg, Virginia. According to investigators, during a flight from Charlotte to Boston in September, Thompson recorded a video of a 14-year-old girl. The alleged victim took a picture of a phone secured to the toilet seat by a pair of stickers. The flash of the camera phone can be seen in the photograph. 

According to court documents, the girl showed her parents the picture when she returned to her seat. The parents then passed the information to the other flight attendants. According to the family’s civil attorney, Paul Llewellyn, the photograph helped spark the criminal investigation.

"Without that picture of that cell phone, then who knows?" he said. "This may never come to light, and he may have got away with it." 

Investigators later took a look into Thompson’s iCloud account and found he allegedly recorded similar videos of minors in the bathroom on the plane. The victims in those instances were seven, nine, 11, and 14 at the time. One of the victims was aboard a flight from Orlando to Charlotte last summer.

This evidence, along with hundreds of AI-generated child pornography, ultimately led to his arrest.

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"[The victim's family is] still trying to process what happened," he said. "The last thing as parents we should have to worry about is that our children are being filmed by flight attendants when they use the bathroom."

Thompson has been charged with one count of attempted sexual exploitation of children and one count of possession of child pornography depicting a prepubescent minor.

American Airlines responded to FOX 35’s request for comment with the following statement:

"We take these allegations very seriously. They do not reflect our airline or our core mission of caring for people. We have been fully cooperating with law enforcement in its investigation, as there is nothing more important than the safety and security of our customers and team."

According to staff, Thompson has not worked with the company since the September incident.

"First and foremost, the family wants to ensure this can never happen again to any other family," Llewellyn said.

Investigators urge anyone who believes they are a victim of or a witness to Thompson’s alleged wrongdoing to contact the FBI.