Several minor female girls were recorded on airplanes in the bathroom allegedly by American Airlines employee in Charlotte
Estes Thompson, 36, was arrested on January 18, 2024 for allegedly video recording little girls in airplane bathrooms with their clothes off in Charlotte, NC. Estes is an employee with American Airlines.
Estes is accused of recording 5 youth aged girls in multiple incidents between January 2023 and September 2023, some of the girls were 7, 9, 11, and 14 years-old.
The investigation began after a 14-year-old girl alarmed airplane staff about a Iphone in the bathroom taped to a toilet seat.
Estes was arrested in Lynchburg, Virginia. In September 2023 the teen girl was on a flight from Charlotte, NC with her dad to Boston. The girl was waiting in line to use an airplane bathroom. Estes approached the girl and told her a bathroom was open on the other side of the hall.
The girl believed Estes and walked with him to the bathroom. Estes told the girl to wait outside as he went in the bathroom first to check it.
Estes is accused of going in the bathroom and taping an Iphone to the toilet seat with a sign that said seat broken. Estes then exited the bathroom and told the girl to go in, but not to let the toilet seat down because it was broken.
The girl went in the bathroom and looked at the toilet, she noticed an Iphone was recording her. The girl took a picture of the phone and left to go tell her father.
The father saw the picture and then confronted Estes. The father said that Estes’s face got very white during the confrontation.
Estes is accused of going in the same bathroom and removing the Iphone, deleting the pictures and videos, putting everything back to factory settings.
Airplane staff and the captain were notified, police were then notified on the ground. When the plane landed, cops looked at Estes phone, but everything was deleted. They checked his bags and found the stickers that matched the paper used to hold the phone up in the airplane bathroom.
Investigators found recordings on Estes’s ICloud account. The victims in the recordings were 7, 9, 11, and 14 years-old, cops say. There were also photos of a 9-year-old unaccompanied minor on an airplane, those photos included close ups of the victim sleeping, court documents say.
The other child victims were on the following flights: Flight 1617 from Charlotte to Denver, Aug. 23, 2023. Flight 2080 from Orlando to Charlotte, Aug. 15, 2023. Flight 1615 from Charlotte to Kansas City, July 26, 2023. Flight 2869 from Austin to Los Angeles, Jan. 26, 2023 Flight 1977 from Charlotte to San Antonio, July 9, 2023.
Estes was arrested on January 18, 2024 charged with one count of attempted sexual exploitation of children and one count of possession of child pornography depicting a prepubescent minor.
American Airlines issued the following statement:“We take these allegations very seriously. They don’t 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. Estes was immediately withheld from service after the incident in September and hasn’t worked since.”
The 14-year-old girl’s family sued American Airlines in December 2023.
