NC family sues American Airlines after flight attendant accused of filming girl
The parents of a Union County girl sued American Airlines on Wednesday after the FBI accused a former flight attendant of secretly recording their daughter in a bathroom on a flight from Orlando to Charlotte two years ago.
“What began as a memorable family trip to Disney World has become a parent’s worst nightmare,” according to the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Charlotte.
The girl, 11 at the time, “has suffered severe emotional distress” since the recording aboard Flight 2080 on Aug. 15, 2023, including post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression and a fear of flying, the complaint states.
Now 13, the girl “is consistently worried about being in a public restroom by herself,” according to the lawsuit filed by lawyer Paul Llewellyn of San Francisco. “She asks for someone to come to the bathroom with her. Every time she enters a public restroom, she looks around for a camera.”
The girl “has difficulty focusing on school-related tasks,” according to the lawsuit, which seeks money and other damages to be determined at trial.
Former flight attendant Estes Carter Thompson III was sentenced to 18 1/2 years in prison July 23 after pleading guilty in March in a similar but separate case: using an iPhone to try to record a 14-year-old Charlotte girl as she used a bathroom aboard a Charlotte-to-Boston flight in September 2023, court records show. The phone was taped to the toilet with red tape that was not accessible to passengers, according to court documents.
Thompson, 38, is a former longtime Raleigh resident who most recently lived in Virginia, public records show.
He pleaded guilty in the Boston, Massachusetts, case to attempted sexual exploitation of children and possession of child pornography depicting a pre-pubescent minor, according to the plea agreement he signed.
A federal judge in Boston ordered Thompson to serve five years of supervised release after he completes his sentence.
Wednesday’s lawsuit in Charlotte is at least the third filed against the airline involving Thompson.
Charlotte Douglas International Airport is a hub for American Airlines, and provides about 90% of the flights there.
The airline is reviewing the latest lawsuit, a spokesperson told the Observer.
“We take the allegations involving a former team member very seriously,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
“American’s core mission is to care for people — and the foundation of that is the safety and security of our customers and team,” according to the statement.
FBI investigation
In the Charlotte-to-Boston flight case, FBI agents found recordings on Thompson’s iCloud account of four other girls in bathrooms on flights, including ones from Charlotte to Kansas City, Missouri, and Denver, and from Orlando to Charlotte, according to a criminal complaint in U.S. District Court in the District of Massachusetts.
The victims were 7, 9, 11 and 14 years old at the time, prosecutors said. All of the victims were identified, and police contacted their families, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Two months after the Union County family’s Disney World trip, two FBI agents showed up at their front door, according to the family’s lawsuit.
The girl’s mother opened the door. The agents told her that still images of her daughter were found on Thompson’s iCloud account, according to the complaint. They told the woman that she and her husband should let their daughter know what happened.
The mother “was shocked and terrified by the news,” according to the lawsuit.
After follow-up calls from the agents, the couple eventually told their daughter, according to the complaint.
“Learning that she was secretly filmed ... has left her deeply scarred,” the lawsuit states. “(She) has suffered severe negative effects and continues to struggle greatly to this day.”
Family deserves an apology, lawyer says
At Thompson’s July 23 sentencing in Boston, Thompson apologized to the victims and their families, Llewellyn told The Charlotte Observer on Wednesday.
“After nearly two years, American Airlines still hasn’t,” Llewellyn said. “How many lawsuits will it take before the airline accepts responsibility for what happened on its flights? When children are sexually exploited on your watch, silence speaks volumes.”
Llewellyn previously filed two other lawsuits against the airline involving Thompson’s victims, including the 14-year-old from Charlotte. A confidential settlement was reached in that case, court records show. A lawsuit involving a victim in Travis County, Texas, remains active.
This story was originally published August 7, 2025 at 5:30 AM.