Woman Sues American Airlines For Negligence After She Was ‘Raped’ in the Dark By Passenger Sitting Next to Her

A woman has filed a lawsuit in a New Jersey district court against American Airlines, accusing the carrier of negligence after its flight attendants failed to protect her from being ‘raped’ during a flight from Charlotte to Newark Liberty Airport in August 2022.

Two years to the date of the disturbing incident, it can now be revealed that the woman was digitally penetrated by her alleged sexual predator, who then managed to mount her and partially penetrated her with his penis.

According to the lawsuit, the alleged crime took place during a late-night flight when the flight attendants plunged the cabin into darkness shortly after takeoff.

The victim was seated in a middle seat in a row of three with her friend to one side by the window and the perpetrator, whom she had never met before, sitting in the aisle seat.

Shortly after takeoff, both the victim and her friend fell asleep, but during the course of the short one-hour flight from North Carolina, the victim says she awoke to find the perpetrator’s left arm inside her pants, while his right hand had snatched her hand and was rubbing it against his penis.

The victim says she was in such a state of shock and panic that she was unable to move while the perpetrator continued his assault. His black puffer jacket lay on top of them, disguising what he was doing.

It was at this point that the perpetrator allegedly climbed on top of the victim and partially penetrated her before she “gathered the courage” to push him away.

With the perpetrator now sitting in his original seat, he then allegedly asked a flight attendant for a cup of water while “forcibly” holding the victim’s hand.

Soon after, however, the victim was able to wake her friend, and the pair moved to the front of the cabin, where they told a flight attendant what had happened. The victim and her friend were moved to different seats, and the crew called ahead to have law enforcement meet the aircraft on arrival.

Bizarrely, the perpetrator was escorted off the plane, but despite providing a statement to police, the victim and her attorney are still none the wiser as to whether the man was ever charged with a crime, the lawsuit claims.

The woman is now accusing American Airlines of negligence of its handling of the incident, and argues that the airline industry is very well aware of the increasing danger of inflight sexual assaults.

The lawsuit makes a slew of claims against the carrier, alleging that flight attendants failed to monitor the cabin, failed to prevent the assault, and failed to intervene fast enough.

The suit says that American Airlines hired ‘incompetent’ or ‘ill-equipped’ flight attendants who were unable to properly monitor the cabin and that a policy of dimming the cabin lights created an environment that was “conducive to misconduct by passengers”.

Unfortunately, the number of inflight sexual assaults are on the rise, and last year the Department of Justice issued an urgent warning over what it described as a ‘disturbing’ rise in inflight sexual assaults.

Cases are rising nationally, and the FBI has seen a marked increase over the last few years. In 2017, the FBI investigated just 27 sexual misconduct cases aboard aircraft, but after a pandemic-induced dip, the number of reported cases ballooned to 90 in 2022.

Earlier this month, a 32-year-old man from San Diego pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a teenage girl on another American Airlines flight from Charlotte in January 2023.

Ryan Coffey reached a plea agreement with prosecutors in which he admitted to deliberately giving the 14-year-old girl rum to drink before sexually assaulting her.