08/12/2025
A former American Airlines flight attendant was sentenced yesterday for surreptitiously recording minor female passengers as they used aircraft lavatories.
Estes Carter Thompson III, 38, of Charlotte, N.C., was sentenced to 18.5 years in prison and five years of supervised release. In March 2025, Thompson pleaded guilty to one count of attempted sexual exploitation of children and one count of possession of child po*******hy depicting a prepubescent minor.
On Sept. 2, 2023, while working as a flight attendant onboard an American Airlines flight from Charlotte, N.C. to Boston, Mass., Thompson video-recorded or attempted to surreptitiously video-record a 14-year-old female passenger as she used the lavatory. Specifically, before the minor victim entered the lavatory, Thompson surreptitiously attached his iPhone to the underside of the toilet seat lid using red “INOPERATIVE EQUIPMENT” stickers and set the phone’s camera to record with the flashlight illuminated.
Upon the flight’s arrival at Boston’s Logan Airport, Thompson’s suitcase was found to contain 11 “INOPERATIVE EQUIPMENT” stickers, like those observed by the minor victim on the back of the toilet seat.
A search of Thompson’s iCloud account revealed four additional instances in which Thompson recorded minor females using the aircraft lavatory on flights he had worked between January and August 2023. The four minor victims depicted in the surreptitious recordings were six, nine, 11 and 14 years old at the time. Also found on Thompson’s iCloud were over 50 images of a nine-year-old child who had travelled as an unaccompanied minor on a flight he worked. Additionally, hundreds of AI-generated images depicting child sexual abuse were also found stored on Thompson’s iCloud account.
All minor victims involved in this matter have been identified and their families have been contacted by law enforcement.
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