EXCLUSIVE: Blow to American Airlines Sex Assault Case Where Pilot Boasted of Underage Girls, Strip Clubs, Drank on the Job: Suit
AA flight attendants: Pay attention to the case of F.O. Sigsbee Nelson, which goes to trial Aug. 20, to learn how to protect yourselves from your own airline
The usual TW/CW: mention of SA, rape, gaslighting, plane crashes, stalking, harassment.
Know something about the Sigsbee Nelson/American Airlines case? Now’s the time to stand up and speak up if you want things to change. American is saying Sigsbee had no “prior discipline or complaints.” Contact me or the victims’ attorneys. You can request to speak to a woman at the firm.
If you know anything about Michael Haak of Southwest Airlines re: the Capt. Christine Janning case, contact her legal team: stopairlineassault at proton.me
As he cruised at 35,000 feet on a plane bound for São Paulo, Brazil on a cool February evening, Sigsbee “John” Nelson had a hankering for some booze.
Problem was, he was in uniform. And oh, yeah—he was an American Airlines First Officer who was supposed to be helping fly the aircraft that was packed with hundreds of trusting souls.
Undeterred by this pesky confluence of facts, Nelson strolled to the aft galley in search of liquor. A pilot known in the halls of American Airlines for the time he got so wasted on the crew shuttle while in uniform he fell over and split his pants, Nelson apparently thought it was appropriate to ask a fellow crewmember to hook him up.
Thankfully for everyone on board, veteran flight attendant Janette Beckman was on duty that day, and…
…concerned about the safety of hundreds of passengers and her fellow crew members, [Beckman] denied Nelson’s request.
Dissatisfied with Beckman’s refusal to enable his on-duty drinking and flying, Nelson began sexually harassing her. He stated, unprovoked, “I know you like S&M (sadomasochism) and I know you like to be tied up.” Beckman made it clear Nelson’s conduct was unwelcome.
This is all according to a lawsuit filed against Nelson and American Airlines in 2020, and it gets worse.
Much worse.
Keep reading for two pieces of breaking news in this case.
Fellow FA LeeAnne Hansen overheard the exchange and joined Beckman. The first officer then started on Hansen with creepy sexual comments, court papers say: “Oh, you’re into ropes? Do you wanna come to my room and tie me up?” Court papers say Hansen “immediately objected to Nelson’s comment. Unrelenting, Nelson then said, ‘Oh, you’re one of those. You want me to tie you up?’”
After landing in Brazil, an upset Beckman told Captain Bob Sipovac, her supervisor in command of the flight, about the encounter.
“Far from surprised, Captain Sipovac shared that, in the cockpit, Nelson boasted of his sexual conquests with underage prostitutes—in reality, child sex slaves—and visits to strip clubs during layovers, even showing pictures he kept as mementos,” court papers say.
Yet Sipovac did nothing to protect the FAs or report Nelson, the suit says.
“Captain Sipovac could have reported the misconduct but did not. He could have separated FO Nelson from [the FAs], as he was his supervisor and had the authority to do so. Captain Sipovac’s solution was not only to do nothing, but to ensure that FO Nelson had more contact with the victim flight attendants,” court papers say.
Nelson escalated things once off the aircraft, allegedly committing sexual assault and battery later that same day in the crew’s hotel elevator:
Both Hansen and Beckman, who witnessed the violent alleged sexual assault and battery on Hansen, suffered PTSD, anxiety, and had to take medical leaves of absence.
POP QUIZ: Guess who American gave paid leave and who they gave leave without pay?
Breaking News
Chatter about this case has been simmering in the industry for years, and it reached a boiling point in recent months with information swapped under the radar and other women sharing their stories related to this case.
Here’s what you probably don’t know:
Last month, American Airlines was let off the hook. They wriggled out of responsibility for their own pilot’s behavior yet again when the judge in the case granted American’s motion for summary judgment, and now only Nelson is facing trial on August 20 in Los Angeles.
This is a (hopefully short-term) blow to the former flight attendants’ case, to be sure.
I contacted the FAs’ attorneys, and senior partner Avi Burkwitz of the California law firm of Peterson, Bradford, Burkwitz, Gregorio, Burkwitz & Su told me that he and his clients plan to appeal.
“My clients are upset and disappointed” that they won’t face American Airlines at trial next month, Burkwitz said, but added that after the case against Sigsbee Nelson is fully resolved, the attorney will appeal the decision that let American out of the lawsuit.
I also contacted Nelson’s legal team, but they never responded.
Flight Attendants: Use These Insider Tips to Protect Yourselves
Thanks to discovery, we know more about how American Airlines gets away with treating flight attendants as disposable while protecting male pilots who bully, sexually harass and abuse them. (How many complaints did Flight 587 pilot and predator Sten Molin have against him over the years, for example? American isn’t saying). Flight attendants should know that:
American’s policy is to destroy personnel records after two years. “American acknowledges it has no personal knowledge whether Nelson had prior founded conduct or any alleged incidents. What is even more outrageous is that FO Nelson still has had no documented misconduct,” the FAs’ lawsuit reveals. If you’re assaulted on the job by a predatory pilot who’s faced previous complaints, American can say they didn’t know about his history and can dodge any responsibility for keeping him on while he continues harming women on the job. Make notes about everything that happens to you. Times, dates, events, witnesses.
Depending on the state or country you’re assaulted/abused in by an American Airlines pilot, there’s a chance you won’t be able to seek legal remedies against American, so perhaps get legal advice now about whether it’s prudent to make reports to authorities in the location you’re in, as daunting as that might seem. As the airline’s motion for summary judgment explains, Nelson’s conduct occurred “extraterritorially,” “over international waters during flight and in a hotel elevator in Sao Paulo, Brazil.” The airline won in part based on this argument.
As I understand it, another argument American Airlines had against doing anything whatsoever to take good care of sexual assault/harassment victims was that the law “cannot hold American liable for assault and battery by Nelson both because Nelson’s actions are facially outside the scope of his employment, and American in no way ratified his conduct.” I’m sorry, what? They were all in an elevator, on the airplane, they were all on duty…what am I missing?
This is a biggie, FAs. From what I understand, American also claimed that Captain Sipovac was NOT the victims’ supervisor. He was in command of the aircraft, he was their superior, but from what I understand, American is saying the only proper way to get their assault/harassment through official channels was for the FAs to have called their actual supervisor—the person who directs their assignments—back on the ground in Los Angeles.
A man is known by the company he keeps. A company is known by the men it keeps.
The Institutional Protection of Pilots
Sigsbee Nelson is one man. He’s an alleged predator.
But there are many others like him. As the saying goes, for every cockroach you see, there are 100 more you don’t. It’s the airlines and the institutions and the power structures around these men that are responsible for keeping these male pilots in jobs where they can assault women they work with at will.
Paging Southwest Captains Michael Haak (ret.) and Thomas James “TJ” Rueschenberg (still flying) and anyone still (weirdly) defending the late American Airlines FO Sten Molin, for starters.
When predatory pilots do face accusations, other male pilots rally around them, often embarrassing themselves because everyone knows the man they’re defending has a history of behaving badly (I’m talking broadly here, not specifically about Nelson).
There’s some disagreement within the Nelson lawsuit about this issue, according to court papers:
“FO Nelson had committed misconduct prior to February 16, 2019, of which his supervisor Captain Sipovac was aware. Captain Sipovac admits that prior to the February 16, 2019, FO Nelson approached him about frequenting hookers in Brazil, attempted to show Captain Sipovac pornographic materials on his phone, and talked about frequenting strip clubs with underage girls. Captain Sipovac and Captain Steven Schwartz each knew that FO Nelson ‘had prior issues.’
“Further, FO Nelson inappropriately touched a female flight attendant prior to the February 16, 2019, flight,” the FAs’ court papers say.
A woman also testified in this case that Sigsbee Nelson molested her as a child.
And yet…
American said they “never received a [previous] complaint” against Nelson like the ones in this lawsuit. And yet… Nelson’s LAX-based Chief Pilot Peter Blandino made a startling admission, testifying that American sometimes “removes discipline from a pilots’ personnel file.”
American Airlines senior human resources specialist Jeanette Gibbs also testified to this practice—all while American Airlines management simultaneously says they never had complaints about Nelson.
*Screams into void* But how can they say that truthfully when they admit scrubbing some complaints from files?
Anyway, in the months after the incidents, Nelson was put on leave—specifically “PW, Withheld from Service, Paid” status—pending an investigation, while this same paid deal was denied to the women who’d accused a precious pilot of abuse. Court papers say that:
Plaintiffs Remained on Unpaid Leave for Months During American’s Purported Investigation, Permitting Rumors to Spread and Causing Them Significant Distress and Economic Loss.
The Funniest Letter Ever (in a dark humor kind of way)
On August 30, 2019, HR’s Jeanette Gibbs sent a letter to flight attendant LeeAnne Hansen, who had told her superiors that one of their pilots had sexually assaulted and battered her in front of witnesses while she was working for them.
The short letter, on official airline letterhead, states in part:
“Please be assured that your allegations were taken seriously. The matter has been closed; and appropriate action has been taken.
Please know that the Company takes its commitment to ensure a workplace free of harassment and retaliation seriously.”
Please know that “appropriate action” WAS LITERALLY NOTHING.
I bet a bunch of readers here have received slippery letters like this.
The suit says American never investigated Nelson’s drinking on the job, and reveals that the FAs “understand that American was aware of Nelson’s on-shift drinking such that it was reasonably foreseeable that Nelson would become drunk and disorderly during his work shifts.”
Sigsbee Nelson was never disciplined.
He testified that American Airlines didn’t terminate him or ask him to retire.
Nelson went skipping off on his merry way with his full AA retirement benefits and no disciplinary action listed in his file, nabbing himself another job flying for a charter company.
This airline is shameless. Remember in May when American’s court filing enraged the entire planet because it said a 9-year-old girl was recorded by one of their pedophile flight attendants through her “own fault and negligence” by using a bathroom “which she knew or should have known contained a visible and illuminated recording device”? Remember that?
American Airlines didn’t pull back WHEN the documents were filed. They backed down AFTER the world went bananas calling out their twisted defense. This is what they do when no one’s looking. When the word notices them, they fall all over themselves to do the decent thing. This doesn’t happen nearly enough.
The airline allowed the case to spiral way out of hand, and the only people who suffered were the alleged harassment and assault victims—the women.
As always, the airline was aided and abetted by people who probably consider themselves “good” men.
You know what they say about that, right? The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
There are too many pilots who protect their colleagues at the expense of the women they’ve clearly harmed. Who look the other way. Who keep their heads down. Where are the heroes?
What if these FAs working under Sipovac had been his wife, daughters, nieces, sisters? Would he have allowed that situation to escalate and cause more harm to the women who had to fly back with Nelson, and potentially the passengers who were being flown by a man looking for booze mid-flight?
Court papers say Sipovac did ask Nelson to apologize to the women—when they were already in the flight deck flying home, and the FAs were extremely anxious and concerned that someone they’d lost faith in was helping fly the aircraft.
And where did that get Hansen and Beckman, anyway? Financially, physically, emotionally and mentally harmed. From Beckman’s deposition:
A That isn't the only thing that Mr. Nelson did to me. He made me witness a sexual assault that I will never forget.
Q Okay. So you wanted -- you believed you were injured in such a way that you're entitled to damages because of the assault you claim to have observed; is that right?
A That's right.
Q And how were you injured?
A I was mentally distraught. Have you ever seen someone get violated like that? Would you like your daughter to get violated like that?
If you don’t speak up, you’re part of the problem.
Period.
No matter how hard it is, those are the facts.
There is so much more to this story, including the nauseating cigar incident. I’ll be covering the case in the coming months as it heads to trial in August.
Last thing. I’m speaking directly to the many good people at American Airlines who might know something about this case: Are you going to stand up or are you going to continue to allow this conduct on your watch?
Isn’t it time?
This lawsuit is just one more entry in American Airlines’ ignominious portfolio of predatory pilots. Look at Sten Molin and his many FA victims and survivors, or this guy who an FA said in a sworn affidavit attempted to rape her after announcing his intentions to a fellow AA pilot who did NOTHING but later exclaimed, “Oh my god, he said he was gonna rape himself a flight attendant!” Or the AA managers who gave flight attendant Kimberly Goesling’s hotel room number to a drunk man in their employ who then barged into her room and sexually assaulted her. Or the others whose names are floating around under the radar.
It’s always the FA victims who are retaliated against and the male pilots who are protected. It’s exhausting. When will it end?
One last note:
A new video will be dropping soon. The mini-documentary will come out on YouTube this month and will dive into the timeline and specifics of how The Landing came to be. It’ll have receipts for days. More soon.
Thanks for reading.
—Sara
About me
I’m an award-winning journalist and bestselling author with decades of international experience writing for magazines and newspapers including People, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, the Sunday Times Magazine (UK), Glamour, Shape, Epicurious.com, and more.
My 2021 memoir/military history book The Strong Ones: How a Band of Civilian Women Made Their Mark on the Army was an overnight #1 bestseller on Amazon in 2021. Said former U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, “The Strong Ones provides an inspirational message for our times.”
My crime reporting includes the most high-profile cases of the past decades. I’ve been sent to Italy to report on the Amanda Knox case, Portugal to cover Madeleine McCann’s disappearance, London to cover the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings, L.A. for the death of Michael Jackson, and Sandy Hook, Conn. to cover the horrific school shooting, to name a few.
I was the first-ever recipient of the Jane Cunningham Croly Award for Excellence in Journalism Covering Issues of Concern to Women from the General Federation of Women’s Clubs. Winners after me included Marianne Pearl, and judges were legends in journalism like Judy Woodruff. I contributed to the feminist anthology Letters of Intent (Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 1999) alongside such icons as Gloria Steinem, Ntozake Shange and Judy Blume, receiving a review from the New York Times. I am the author of a total of 13 fiction and nonfiction books, some of them under a pen name.