Flight Attendant Sentenced Over Exploitation and Filming of Underage Girls

An American Airlines flight attendant has been sentenced to 18½ years in federal prison for secretly recording underage girls in airplane lavatories. Estes Carter Thompson III, 37, pleaded guilty to capturing videos of five young girls over nine months and accumulating illicit child pornography, including AI-generated images.

During his sentencing, Thompson apologized, acknowledging his actions as “selfish, perverse, and wrong,” and was immediately dismissed from his job. Federal prosecutors described how he used a makeshift hidden camera, including a phone taped to a toilet lid, to document the girls, who ranged in age from 7 to 14. After one girl discovered the camera, she found an iPhone concealed beneath a toilet seat sticker that read “seat broken,” and took photos of the device, which she later shared with her parents. The victim’s father confronted Thompson, who then hid in the bathroom for the flight and deleted the footage.

An investigation uncovered additional red maintenance stickers in Thompson’s luggage, as well as more recordings stored in his iCloud, including videos of four other underage girls and images of children in vulnerable situations. Authorities also found a cache of sexual AI-generated content involving minors.

Thompson’s arrest occurred after he escorted a 14-year-old girl to the lavatory on a flight to Boston, requesting to go first under the pretext of fixing a faulty toilet seat. The girl noticed a suspicious device and alerted her parents. Investigators later found more evidence linking Thompson to the exploitation of several young girls, including a 9-year-old sleeping unaccompanied on the plane.

Thompson is set to serve his sentence at FMC Butner in North Carolina, where he plans to undergo treatment for sex offenders. In addition to the prison time, he will be under five years of supervised release. While Thompson was promptly fired by American Airlines, the airline faces ongoing civil lawsuits from the victims’ families, who criticize the company for allowing such abuse to occur on its watch.

Legal representative Paul Llewellyn described Thompson’s actions as “calculated and invasive,” emphasizing the need for airline reforms to prevent similar incidents in the future.