Estes Carter Thompson admitted to secretly recording underage girls in airplane lavatories. Photo / Lynchburg Jail
A former American Airlines flight attendant who secretly filmed underage girls in airplane bathrooms has been sentenced to 18 and a half years in prison.
Prosecutors said that between January and September 2023, Estes Carter Thompson III set up “a secret recording studio” in the lavatories using his cellphone and directed girls there so he could film them, later storing and revisiting the videos. He was eventually caught when a 14-year-old girl noticed the phone he had taped to the lid of the toilet and reported the incident to her mother, leading to his arrest in January 2024.
Thompson was sentenced on Wednesday to 18½ years in federal prison, followed by five years of supervised release, during which he must register as a sex offender and participate in a treatment programme for sex offenders, among other conditions. Judge Julia E. Kobick recommended that he be incarcerated in a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina.
Thompson “robbed five young girls of their innocence and belief in the goodness of the world and the people they would encounter in it, instead leaving them with fear, mistrust, insecurity, and sadness”, the US attorney’s office for the District of Massachusetts said in a sentencing memo.
Thompson pleaded guilty in March to one count of attempted sexual exploitation of children and one count of possession of child pornography depicting a prepubescent minor.
In a sentencing memo submitted to the court, he said he had “ample time to reflect on his actions” since his arrest and “fully acknowledges the wrongfulness of his conduct and is remorseful for the harm he has caused”. His lawyer, Scott Lauer, could not immediately be reached for comment early Thursday.
Thompson’s actions first came to light on September 2, 2023, when he worked as a flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 1441 from Charlotte to Boston. Prosecutors said he approached a 14-year-old girl while she was waiting in line to use the bathroom in economy class and told her that she could use the first-class bathroom instead. Thompson escorted the girl to the first-class bathroom but went in first – telling the girl that the toilet seat was broken – and attached his iPhone to the underside of the toilet seat lid, covering it up with stickers, and set the phone’s camera to record.
After the girl used the bathroom, she noticed the phone protruding from underneath the “Inoperative Catering Equipment” stickers and took a picture. After she came out, Thompson “immediately entered the lavatory and removed his iPhone”, prosecutors said in their sentencing memo. But the girl alerted her mother, who notified the girl’s father and other flight attendants.
After being confronted, Thompson “took his iPhone into the lavatory, where he restored the phone to factory settings, wiping all content from the phone”, prosecutors said.
When the plane landed in Boston, investigators were waiting for Thompson and seized his device and bag, and found 11 “Inoperative Catering Equipment” stickers in his carry-on suitcase. As part of the investigation, they searched his iCloud account and identified four additional instances in which Thompson had recorded pubescent or prepubescent girls in a plane bathroom, investigators said.
Investigators also found 50 images of a sixth child who travelled as an unaccompanied minor on a flight on which Thompson worked as a flight attendant, when she was around 10 years old. Those images showed her sleeping and included some that “focused on the child’s clothed buttocks as she deplaned,” prosecutors said.
Finally, prosecutors said that investigators found “additional evidence of Thompson’s sexual interest in children” in his iCloud account, including hundreds of AI-generated child pornography images.
Following the incident, Thompson said that he checked himself into a rehab facility for treatment for alcohol abuse, citing a years-long “unhealthy relationship with alcohol” that was exacerbated during the pandemic. The Associated Press reported that Thompson apologised in court on Wednesday and said his actions were “selfish, perverse and wrong”.
Prosecutors in their memo said Thompson’s actions deeply impacted his five victims and their families. They cited the parents of the 14-year-old girl who reported Thompson as saying that she is “not the same child” anymore and has lost trust in adults and men in particular.
“The harms caused by the defendant are numerous and run deep, and will likely be felt by these children and their families for years,” prosecutors said.
The family who reported Thompson in Boston filed a lawsuit against American Airlines in December 2023, alleging the company “should have known the flight attendant was a danger” and that other crew members failed to confiscate his phone mid-flight, allowing him time to destroy evidence.
“We take these allegations very seriously,” American Airlines said in a statement at the time. “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.”
American said Thompson was “immediately withheld from service following the September 2023 incident and hasn’t worked since”.
WSOC, a television station based in North Carolina, reported in February that the family settled with the airline.
The family of another victim, who was 9 years old at the time, previously told the Washington Post their daughter had become too afraid to sleep the night before a flight, asking if the flight attendant in question would be on the plane or whether there would be male flight attendants working.
When the girl had to use the restroom, “I had to walk with her and check it out before,” her mother said. “That’s our new normal.”