A former American Airlines flight attendant accused of surreptitiously recording video of young girls in an airplane lavatory pleaded guilty to federal charges on Thursday.
Estes Carter Thompson III, 37, pleaded guilty to one count of attempted sexual exploitation of children and one count of possession of child pornography, according to a statement from the Department of Justice. The U.S. District Court judge overseeing the case in Boston, Julia E Kobick, has scheduled sentencing for June 17, 2025.
Thompson could face 15 to 30 years in prison for the first charge, up to 20 years for the second charge, followed by at least five years of supervised release, and possible fines and restitution charges.
Thompson’s illegal activities first came to light on an American Airlines flight from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Boston, Massachusetts, on September 2, 2023, The Dallas Express reported. During the flight, a 14-year-old female passenger waiting in line to use the main cabin bathroom was directed by Thompson to use the first-class cabin bathroom.
Before allowing her to enter, Thompson said he needed to go inside the lavatory to wash his hands, and he mentioned that the toilet lid was broken. When the teen entered the lavatory, she saw stickers with the words “Seat Broken” on the toilet seat lid and noticed a light shining below the sticker. The Department of Justice (DOJ) alleged that Thompson was using the stickers to conceal his iPhone to record his victims.
The girl snapped a photo of the stickers on the toilet seat lid in the bathroom before returning to her seat to show it to her parents.
The girl’s parents notified the airline staff, who relayed the information to the captain. The teen’s father confronted Thompson, who barricaded himself in the bathroom for several minutes before the plane began its descent. When the flight landed at the airport, law enforcement found that Thompson had restored his iPhone to factory settings. While searching his luggage, officials found stickers identical to the ones on the toilet cover.
Authorities later found evidence in Thompson’s iCloud account revealing that he had recorded at least four other young girls using the airplane lavatory between January and August of 2023. The girls in the images were ages 7, 9, 11, and 14 at the time. His account also contained more than 50 images of a 9-year-old girl who had traveled as an unaccompanied minor on one of the airline’s flights and hundreds of AI-generated images depicting child sexual abuse, according to the DOJ.
The airline identified all of the child victims involved and notified their parents. The family of the 14-year-old victim filed a lawsuit against American Airlines, which has since been settled. Another lawsuit against the airline, filed by the family of the 9-year-old victim from Austin, Texas, is scheduled to go to trial in July, the Associated Press reported.