Shocking Texts, Claims of Pilot Sex Assault in Flight Attendant's Suit Against Alaska-Owned Horizon Air
Alaska Airlines is in the news re: pilots and safety—so why did their subsidiary allegedly look the other way when two pilots were reported for alleged "severe" sexual harassment?
Trigger warning for graphic discussion of sexual assault and sexual harassment
Stay with The Landing as I cover upcoming developments in this case
You might be aware a new documentary dropped yesterday on FX/Hulu titled Lie to Fly. Created in conjunction with the New York Times, it goes deep into the story of the Alaska Airlines pilot who tried to crash a plane last October while on mushrooms, as well as the broader implications for pilots’ mental health and its connection to passenger safety.
Which is great, but are airlines doing enough to keep us safe based on what they do know? Are they ignoring warning signs about who’s at the controls of the plane we’ve boarded on any given day?
Have those questions in the back of your mind as you read this story of how Alaska-owned Horizon Air allegedly handled claims of sexual assault and harassment by their pilots.
The Dream Job Takes Off
She’s new, excited, a little nervous. At 23, she made it through rigorous flight attendant training and landed a job in a competitive field, so she’s confident. Scared. Ready.
She soars above the clouds at the height of summer in 2023 and dreams of the places this new adventure with Horizon Air, a wholly owned subsidiary of Alaska Airlines, will take her.
On her first flight, she meets a dark-haired, friendly young pilot. He’s 30-ish, flirty, maybe a bit cocky.
He’s in uniform and in control of an aircraft with dozens of souls aboard. They become friendly on subsequent trips. He’s nice, generous, safe. At first.
And then the mask, allegedly, falls.
BRANDON: you knew my situation, you’re the one who came over
ME: I came over to talk
Then you hopped on top of me forcefully
BRANDON: You can tell yourself whatever you need to tell yourself
ME: I didn’t want to do that and I’ve never done anything before. I felt pressured and like I couldn’t breathe
BRANDON: I’m sorry
This Snapchat exchange between the flight attendant and the Horizon Air first officer is a snippet from 18 pages of messages filed with a lawsuit by the FA against Horizon Air last month in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, Portland Division.
The flight attendant, named in court documents as J.B., says she was “severely sexually harassed” almost from the day she strapped into her jumpseat on a Horizon Embraer 175 and felt earth become air beneath her.
Soon after starting her job with Horizon Air, plaintiff began experiencing sexual harassment in the workplace from Horizon Air’s male pilots. From September 2023 to February 2024, two Horizon Air pilots repeatedly and severely sexually harassed plaintiff…
For example, the suit says, a second married pilot texted her from the flight deck saying he wanted to eat her butt. The brand-new FA was bombarded with unwanted, unsolicited texts including missives about blow jobs and jerking off, the suit alleges.
J.B. reported the harassment to Horizon Air’s human resources department in December of 2023, at which point they enlisted the novel strategy of victim blaming, covering up and normalizing their male pilots’ wildly inappropriate (at best) treatment of one of their flight attendants, according to court papers:
Horizon Air took no action to protect plaintiff and instead insinuated that plaintiff was at fault for allegedly encouraging the inappropriate behavior.
To add to her trauma, J.B.’s suit says, she was sexually assaulted by one of the pilots on multiple occasions.
The first time, she writes in an exhibit filed with the lawsuit, was in October 2023 when she and the married pilot were watching a movie in his hotel room on a layover. As the complaint alleges,
…a married Horizon Air pilot, Mr. Butler, lured plaintiff to his hotel room after a flight together and then subjected plaintiff to a sexual assault including unwanted kissing and touching before she was able to extricate herself and leave.
The flight attendant’s statement offers more details of what she says happened in the room that night. Allegedly, he went to kiss her. After a moment, she said stop. He kept going. She said stop again. Again, he didn’t, court papers say:
“He then tried unzipping my pants and then I rolled over and got off the bed,” J.B. writes. “I then said ‘I’m leaving.’ I felt pressured. It took me 6 times to get him to stop. I left after and felt unsafe…The next morning I woke up to several messages from him saying ‘I’m so sorry, do you think I’m a bad person? Do you hate me??? I am so sorry.’”
The Pilot Denies The Allegations
The 18 pages of virtual conversations between J.B. and the pilot she accuses of sexual assault indicate they were in a relationship of sorts, at least by the dictionary definition of “a connection, association, or involvement.”
The suit suggests the pilot was nice and friendly early on and bought the flight attendant food at the airport at a time when she was new and had few friends in town. The chats suggest he was persistent in pursuing her, and it wasn’t until they were alone and he went to kiss her that she noticed he wore a wedding band, noting in court papers that his “flirtatious” behavior had led her to believe he was free and single.
The suit says J.B. made it clear from the start that she was saving herself for marriage and never wanted nor consented to sexual contact with him.
In this undated Snapchat exchange, the pilot writes to the 23-year-old woman,
BRANDON: You have to have sex at some point
ME: I’m waiting till marriage
BRANDON: Well then go get married
ME: I’m waiting for the right person, I don’t want to fall in love with the wrong person
The pilot, named as Brandon Butler in court filings, is NOT a defendant in the flight attendant’s lawsuit. Butler denies that anything non-consensual went on between him and J.B.
J.B. reported her alleged assault and harassment to police in March of 2024, and two months later she obtained a Sexual Abuse Protective Order (SAPO) against the Horizon Air First Officer that prevents him from contacting her or coming within 150 feet of her. It expires in 2029.
However, Butler is contesting the SAPO, and I’m told he will face J.B. in an Oregon court in a matter of weeks, at which point we’d expect to hear his side of the story.
I contacted his attorney, who sent me this statement:
“Mr. Butler is contesting the SAPO as the spurious and defamatory allegations that have been made are without merit. All of the contact that occurred was between two consenting adults.”
I contacted Alaska Airlines for comment. The suit says Butler and the other married pilot are both still flying for Horizon Air, one of the nation’s largest regional carriers, and I asked if that remained the case. I also asked if there was an investigation into the pilots’ alleged behavior, or if texts to FAs like those revealed in the suit, including one with a link to a Pornhub video, were considered acceptable in their workplace.
My final question was this: Allegations in the lawsuit that your airline not only did not help the victim when she reported [alleged] ongoing abuse but also victim-blamed her are shocking and disturbing. What is Alaska/Horizon’s response to these claims? What is your policy for handling reports of sexual assault by employees?
The airline’s response was the following:
Another sexual assault, J.B.’s suit alleges, happened in February of 2024. The flight attendant’s written statement explains that she went to see Butler at his Portland hotel after he contacted her on a layover, hoping to talk and find “closure.”
“When I got there, he asked what I wanted to do,” J.B. writes. “I said I wanted to watch a movie and talk. He sat next to me on the couch. I said I was okay with cuddling. He said he was horny. He was laying next to me and just rolled on top of me and started kissing me aggressively.
“He asked if he could touch me and I said no. Then he said ‘it would feel better if you suck on my penis.’ I did not and said no. I don’t want to go into the details of everything that happened but he sexually assaulted me. Then right after he said ‘don’t get attached’ and chucked a towel at me.”
Brandon Butler’s attorney says his client denies all of these allegations.
Can a Power Imbalance Mean a ‘Relationship’ Is Something Else?
The text messages and Snapchat exchanges between J.B. and Butler paint a troubling picture of the age-old power dynamic between pilots and flight attendants.
As the lawsuit puts it,
At all material times, pilots for Horizon Air held supervisor roles to flight attendants. For example, Horizon Air empowers pilots to exercise control over the selection of crews for flights, as well as the utmost authority to exercise control over flight attendants during flights.
Over the 18 pages of back-and-forth messages in the exhibit filed with the lawsuit, I counted 10 places where the alleged victim uttered a version of NO. There was no, nope, I don’t want to, i told you not to, don’t touch me, I’m not sending you nudes, and again, NO.
Some messages also show Butler pushing back and expressing a different recollection about what happened between them.
In one Snapchat, for example:
J.B.: I said we should stop and you didn’t want to
BRANDON: but I did stop when you said that
J.B.: no you took me over to the bed
BRANDON: And on the bed is where you said you wanted to stop.
J.B.: No I had to say it like 5 times I think I was kinda scared and didn’t know what to say
The airline appeared to be unmoved when J.B. made yet another detailed report to HR, and left it to her to protect herself even as she unsuccessfully attempted to avoid flying with Butler.
“When plaintiff again reported the hostile work environment to Horizon Air human resources at a lengthy in-person meeting, Horizon Air again attempted to blame plaintiff, despite the fact that plaintiff was a virgin who was saving herself for marriage and that she had repeatedly demanded Mr. Butler to stop,” the complaint says.
Furthermore, “The sexual harassment in the workplace continued for several more months, including the solicitation of nude photos from plaintiff, and ongoing pressure on plaintiff to have sex with Horizon Air pilots.”
Here’s another Snapchat exchange:
BRANDON: Have you picked up any of my trips yet for this month
ME: No
BRANDON: Why not
ME: Because i don’t want to
BRANDON: Why’s that
Once again, we see a flight attendant reporting her alleged abuse in the workplace and an airline failing to protect or support her.
As a flight attendant who I’ve been in contact with since the premiere of the video below—which explores how rampant abuse and retaliation in the airline industry affects safety in the air—put it:
“It’s getting better with more women in aviation, but it is still a boys’ club with outdated mindsets. To the airlines, there will always be another flight attendant,” she explains. “We are a barcode that can be pushed through training. There will not always be another pilot; the skillset, hours and experience pilots need is far more lucrative and they will always be protected before a flight attendant solely because of that.”
In this Horizon Air/Alaska Airlines case, the pilots appear to be gainfully employed while the alleged victim was too stressed and fearful to remain in her dream job, court papers say.
By March 2024, the sexual harassment had become so intense that plaintiff reported the behavior to the police and took a leave of absence until Horizon Air agreed to stop scheduling plaintiff as crew on the same flights as Mr. Butler.
J.B. remains on leave.
On a separate note, this case notwithstanding, to all victims and survivors and anyone wondering, check out RAINN’s “What Consent Looks Like.”
Know that entering a room is not giving consent to be touched.
That kissing a person is not consent for them to remove your clothes.
That being “flirtatious” is not an invitation.
Etc. Etc. Etc.
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 noted 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.
I feel this in my bones. Her story is MY story. This is exactly what Sten Molin did to me and so many others. Exactly. Same playbook. Same script. Nothing has changed. I will put this asshole on blast on Reddit. Butler WE SEE YOU. To all the Sten Molin trolls and other predators: We are no longer scared. We see you and your behaviour will be called out. To the girls in harmed by pilots in Brazil: We see you. We hear your story, we believe you.
Thank you Sara for listening to all of us Molin victims. For speaking to me and many others (yes I am a real person, yes Sara has my mobile phone number and other identifying details, NO we are NOT all the same person as the Molin trolls claim. We are real victims dealing with decades of trauma inflicted upon us by Sten Molin). Thank you more than you know 🙏🙏🙏🙏
I put my email address on Reddit for anyone wanting to contact me about Butler’s alleged actions. I have gotten feedback that this lady is most definitely not alone. Butler has a LONG alleged history of this sort of behaviour.