American Airlines Crew Forced Passenger To Sit Next To Masturbating Man, Woman Claims

A woman said she was the victim of a sexual crime on an American Airlines flight — and that the plane's crew did nothing to help her. Chloe King of New York said she was forced to sit next to a man who masturbated while she slept during a flight to Paris.

King wrote about the incident, though she did not say when the flight was, in a post for Medium Sunday entitled “We’ve Now Reached Creeping Altitude.”

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“I woke up right before landing to have a flight attendant call me to the back of the plane and inform me that the man sitting next to me had been masturbating beside me while I slept,” she wrote. “The woman to his other side saw it and happened and asked to be moved and the French police had been notified to arrest the man upon landing – they just wanted to let me know.”

King went on to say that she was forced to go back to her seat instead of being placed somewhere else on the plane.

“What they didn’t do was accommodate my request—after informing me of the assault—to sit anywhere else on the plane for landing,” she wrote. “Instead, they made me climb back over the sex offender, trapped between him and the window for the rest of the flight. I was shaking and crying and trying not to get sick.”

After landing in Paris, King said she reported the incident at the American Airlines counter where she was met with “blank stares.” Eventually, she said, she received a “generic email regarding the ‘disappointing service.’”

King implored readers to choose a different airline when booking their flights. American Airlines, however, told Time’s Motto in a statement that they were reviewing the incident.

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“We are reviewing how we handled the situation on this flight and have reached out directly to Ms. King,” the airline said. “During the flight, our crew requested that French law enforcement meet the aircraft in Paris. Upon arrival, French officials interviewed the male passenger regarding the allegations.”