Woman Is Suing American Airlines, Says She Was Raped In An Airplane Lavatory. HUH?

A woman is suing American Airlines after she says she was raped on one of their flights last summer.

It was a typical flight. Aubrey Lane was on her way to visit family, flying from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport to New York’s JFK International Airport. She said the man she was seated next to was super chatty. She had a feeling he was drunk.

“My first thought was this guy’s drunk. He was super chatty,” she told the Dallas Morning News. “I’ve flown a lot. I’m used to people saying hello. This is the most anyone has sat down and started talking to me.”

Sexual misconduct on planes has persisted for years, but there’s a growing movement to call awareness to the issue. It’s being driven by people like Aubrey Lane, who shared her story with @dallasnews https://t.co/Ep5FudqGNa

— Conor Shine (@Conor_Shine) March 15, 2018

She said she got up to go to the bathroom a few hours into the flight and was ultimately raped by that man in the bathroom. She alerted the cabin crew, and they moved her to a different area of the plane for the remainder of the flight.

“I was feeling overwhelmed … all of a sudden, I was thrown in a middle seat, bawling. On top of being sad and hurt and scared, I was also embarrassed,” Lane said.

Upon landing, she was taken to a hospital.

After being picked up at the hospital by her family, Lane tried to move forward with her New York trip after the assault, spending time with her father, mother, cousin and grandmother. Her husband also flew out to be with her, an unplanned trip that required them to find someone to watch their 2-year-old toddler.

“I was trying to cope but also have family time. It changed a lot about that trip,” she said.

The eight months since have been filled with doctor’s appointments and visits with a counselor. Lane said she’s afraid to fly alone and has stopped working as a real estate brokers’ associate because she does not want to be alone with strangers.

She put plans to have more children on hold and moved across the state to minimize time apart from her husband, who is in the military.

“It’s caused stress on every level. It’s hurt my job, my homelife,” she said. “It’s affected every single part of my life.”

The airline reportedly described her complaint as a “nuisance claim” and offered her $5,000 to settle, but she’s not accepting the offer.

“I would like to see some sort of human response. I would like them to acknowledge this is a problem,” Lane said.

The Post reports that FBI officials are investigating Lane’s allegations, but did not return their request for comment. Lane’s attorneys say that she had offered to meet with representatives for the airline to discuss the incident, but American Airlines declined the offer in part due to the FBI investigation.

The Dallas Morning News adds that Lane was interviewed by FBI investigators at the hospital after the incident, but the man who reportedly raped her was not stopped at the gate after deplaning.

“American’s ultimate responsibility is the safety of their passengers,” said Lane’s attorney, James McDonough, to The Dallas Morning News. “Based on the actions of American Airlines’ flight crew, the safety of Aubrey was not their No. 1 priority.”

American Airlines spokesperson Ross Feinstein spoke to Fox News and provided this statement:

“We want all of our customers to have a safe, positive travel experience with us and we are deeply troubled by any allegation of misconduct onboard our aircraft or at any of our facilities. Our crew contacted law enforcement, who met the aircraft upon arrival at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. As this is still an ongoing investigation, you will have to contact the FBI or the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York for any additional details on their investigation,” Feinstein said.

“Our corporate security team will always provide any investigative assistance we can to federal, state and/or local law enforcement, as we want those who commit crimes on our aircraft to be held accountable for their actions.”

He admitted that the airline didn’t handle her claims as well as it could have.

However, he did say that airline officials failed to contact Lane when she reached out with her claim, and they should have, given the severity of her allegations.

“We should have followed up immediately afterward with Ms. Lane to assure her how seriously we were taking her claims. It is important to note that the way we work with our customers after an incident like Ms. Lane’s has changed over the past few months,” he said.

“If this incident happened today, Ms. Lane would have received a call from our customer relations team making sure that we were providing her with the best possible care during this difficult time. We’re continually focused on improving our customers’ experience and this is a positive change we have made in the last few months,” he added.

I’m still not sure what to make of this story. I think it’s weird that this supposedly happened in the bathroom and NO ONE HEARD anything. Not to mention that airlines are REALLY strict about people going into bathrooms on planes. You really can’t form lines, and they’d usually notice if more than one person was trying to squeeze into that tiny little area. Why did none of the attendants notice?

“I’m coming out now because [American] hasn’t made it evident it wants to change this,” Lane said. “What’s going to stop this from happening again unless I make a big fuss about it?”

I just have a lot of questions. If this IS true and DID happen, American Airlines should be ashamed of itself. Dismissing rape as a “nuisance claim”? Seriously? They can’t be that stupid and insensitive.

I’m not going to float any theories, but I feel like we’re really missing a crucial piece of information here.

h/t Fox News