A teenage girl who says she was recorded in a bathroom on an American Airlines flight is suing the Fort Worth-based airline.
The 14-year-old girl was on a flight from Charlotte to Boston on Sept. 2nd, when she noticed a cell phone taped to a toilet seat recording her.
Her attorney, Paul Llewellyn, says as she was waiting to use a bathroom in coach, a male flight attendant invited her to use the one in first class.
Llewellyn says, "Before she went in, he said, 'Hold on a second, I am about to begin trash collection service. I need to wash my hands.' Obviously that's unusual -- why would you wash your hands before collecting trash?"
By the time the girl noticed the phone, it was too late.
"She turns around to flush and she notices there's an iPhone taped to the back of the restroom, hand-written 'seat broken,' and the camera parts were sticking out, and the light of the iPhone was even on," says Llewellyn. "She has the wherewithal to take a picture of it. She goes back and alerts her parents, and they immediately alert the cabin crew."
Llewellyn says the flight crew failed to take immediate action during the flight.
"You think the phone should have been seized right away? But then the male flight attendant was allowed to tamper with the phone," Llewellyn says. "So we don't know if he was sending the images somewhere. We don't know if he was uploading the images. We don't know if he was deleting images."
Llewellyn says American has been very evasive, saying they still don't even know the flight attendant's name.
"Through this lawsuit, we will be able to uncover his name," says Llewellyn. "That was one of the emphases in filing this lawsuit."
The lawsuit was filed Friday in federal court in North Carolina.
It does not specify a dollar amount that the family is seeking.
"No amount of money can ever rewind history," Llewellyn says. "First and foremost, this is about making sure it can never happen again."
American Airlines has released a statement.
"We take this matter very seriously and have been fully cooperating with law enforcement in their investigation, as safety and security are our highest priorities," the statement reads. "The individual was immediately withheld from service and hasn’t worked since."
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