Southwest Falsified Flight Logs in Sexual Assault Case: Lawsuit
In this year-end issue: Serious allegations and motions to dismiss
Captain Christine Janning’s legal team believes there could be other victims out there. If you have information relating to this case, you can contact them in the strictest confidence at StopAirlineAssault at proton.me
You can reach out to me any time for any reason with absolute confidentiality at metooairlines at proton.me
As 2023 wraps up, I want to thank you all again for reading and amplifying the stories of victims featured here. To the women who have trusted me with their most sensitive and traumatizing experiences, I wish us all a year of healing and continuing to use our voices and our power to be a support system for those thinking about speaking out.
To The Landing’s paid subscribers past and present, I am, as always, incredibly grateful. To those who aren’t in a position to be a paid subscriber, I thank you for being here to bear witness to these important stories.
Subscriber numbers have grown steadily, while readership has skyrocketed since my inaugural story (many choose to bypass the option to subscribe).
To date, major news organizations including the Associated Press, USA Today, the Dallas Morning News and Bloomberg have picked up or followed on my exclusives. Most recently, the Aviation Voices newsletter featured my story about Republic Airways whistleblower Cassaundra van den Heuvel, and it quickly became the most-clicked link of the week.
The work continues, and we’re ending the year with an update on a case we’ve been covering for over a year.
Southwest & The False Flight Logs
The newest legal filing in Southwest Airlines (SWA) Captain Christine Janning’s lawsuit makes the stunning claim the airline “presented falsified flight records” to federal prosecutors who were building a case against Captain Michael Haak.
Specifically, Southwest submitted flight logs that showed Haak and Janning had flown together on May 1 and 2 of 2019, more than a year before he allegedly assaulted her. This move effectively set up a narrative that Janning had a previous relationship with her alleged assailant.
Just one problem: there’s irrefutable evidence Janning wasn’t flying at all on those days, and she never met Haak until the day he got his d-ck out against her will at 40,000 feet.
But why? Why would SWA allegedly perpetrate such a serious and easily discoverable offense?
Let’s start at the beginning.
Regular readers of The Landing will know the very gross origin story of Janning v. Southwest Airlines et al.: In August of 2020, then-Captain Haak stripped naked and watched porn on his tablet at 40,000 feet while then-First Officer Janning stayed steadfast at the controls of the passenger-packed jet. Haak eventually pleaded guilty in federal court, but Janning’s subsequent civil suit says his behavior was actually far worse: The former U.S. Air Force airman also masturbated, ejaculated and threw his semen-stained napkin so it hit her.
Now. That creepy cockpit crime can be framed in two ways for the consumption of the outside world: If Janning and Haak were complete strangers, his actions would be more likely to appear utterly bizarre and thoroughly non-consensual.
But if the two aviators had a prior relationship of any description, that would give people an excuse to doubt Janning’s story and spread false rumors that she asked for it, was complicit, was a participant. If taken as fact, the claim she’d previously flown with Haak would serve to discredit and impugn her character.
And that, according to her third amended complaint filed earlier this month, is exactly what happened.
It’s a fact that Janning and Haak never met before their first flight together in August 2020, and Haak himself swore to that to the feds.
Wrote Janning’s lawyer,
Southwest’s own flight logs (published by SWAPA) show that…Ms. Janning was not flying at all on these dates.
But when the false information in the altered logs got out there, the Southwest grapevine ran with the lie that Janning had more than a professional relationship with Haak.
Read Janning’s latest legal filing here:
The Defamation Connection
In the past I’ve covered the Old Boys’ Club culture at Southwest, the sexual assault and battery allegations against Haak and the retaliation and conspiracy claims against SWA and Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA).
But the defamation part of Janning’s lawsuit is huge, and one key to that claim lies in the flight logs.
A big part of her damage after Haak allegedly assaulted her was the libel and slander she says followed. Many of Janning’s colleagues and superiors, who collectively hold the survival and advancement of her career in their hands, went to town defaming her in person and on social media like mean girls gone wild.
Fellow pilots were calling this veteran captain a “slut” and a “whore” because they’d “heard” she flew with Haak before, and some said she was Haak’s jilted lover who was trying to get back at him for something—who knows what. None of it is true.
The new amended complaint names two women who were chiming in on Facebook about it (I’m redacting their names):
Even in late 2022, Southwest employees…in individual and official capacity as agents of Southwest, wrote public social media comments alleging that Ms. Janning was promiscuous.
I’ve seen Facebook posts that bear this out, some of which were sparked by the late retired Southwest Captain Jeff Hefner, may he rest in peace, who posted a defense of Janning. The responses were depressing to say the least.
To get things started, Jeff wrote in part,
…after severeal years of attempting through the appropriate channels to find some justice and resolution to this [alleged] sexual assault by a fellow pilot and workplace superior…the company and SWAPA [allegedly] made a concerted effort to bury her claims and denigrate her credibility by attacking her character.
The replies flooded in. Wrote one woman,
I have heard other details that make me stop and wonder if this was as innocent…there ARE details that are being left out. I will add I heard Christine went to the media before she went to the company.
Wrote another woman in part,
I’ve heard two different versions [of Haak’s cockpit behavior].
Keep in mind these women are talking about lewd behavior for which the perpetrator pleaded guilty. Yet, as I read it, they seem to be contorting themselves to cast doubt on their female colleague’s traumatic experience. It boggles the mind.
I mean…how does this commenter know there “ARE” details being left out of Janning’s report of Haak’s behavior? She clearly doesn’t, but feels the need to assert her “knowledge” nonetheless. She could have said nothing.
Jeff Hefner, whom I spoke to at length a few months before his tragic and untimely death, posted some of his own replies on Facebook, such as this one (pictured):
In another post, Hefner wrote,
…can you imagine how difficult it has been for Christine Janning these last 2 plus years trying to be heard and get some sort of justice after being [allegedly] sexually assaulted in mid-flight by her Captain on his final flight…and having both the company and SWAPA [allegedly] sweep it under the rug while [allegedly] attacking her, her character, her morality, and her professionalism for having brought the incident to the company’s attention…this could happen to any one of you…
Southwest’s Response
In its December 20 motion to dismiss (MTD), Southwest did not address the accusation that they knowingly provided the federal government with deliberately falsified flight records.
The airline did take a moment to slap a rather hyperbolic label on all of Janning’s claims:
Plaintiff’s purported facts—which have evolved into fantastical with each repleading—simply do not support Plaintiff’s claims of negligent supervision, negligent retention, assault, battery, false imprisonment, libel, slander, and conspiracy. Accordingly, the Court should dismiss Plaintiff’s claims with prejudice.
Read SWA’s motion to dismiss here:
Yet Another Southwest Airlines Captain Accused of Defamation
The most recent filing brings a new character into the proceedings:
In April of 2021, SWA Cpt. Mike Bleau told then-former SWA and SWAPA executive Jeff Hefner that Christine Janning was “a terrible pilot,” a “slut” and a “whore,” and that with regard to the Incident, Ms. Janning had “instigated that, she caused this problem; you know ... that’s the kind of person she is; she’ll fuck anybody for attention.”
Excuse me while I wonder who raised these people. Who talks like this about a woman and fellow pilot?
Further, the complaint alleges that Bleau said similar things to Janning’s bosses, Southwest Captains Michael Hawkes and David Newton, who you’ve read about before.
Southwest’s response, which can be read in full in the embedded document, says Janning…
…fails to state a claim against SWA because the Complaint lacks specific allegations of how these alleged statements occurred in the individuals’ official capacities as agents of SWA. Plaintiff only generally alleges “each Captain made these comments in the course of his duty as a SWA pilot.” However, these allegations are insufficient. Plaintiff’s pleading is notably devoid of any allegation that SWA ordered, directed, orchestrated, was aware, or was otherwise involved with the making of these purported statements.
A retired Southwest captain told me Bleau has a history of alleged harassment toward Janning, who reportedly submitted more than one complaint to HR and her direct bosses about Bleau harassing her—and then took Bleau to court when no one had her back. Jeff Hefner told me he testified on Janning’s behalf when she sought a restraining order to stop Bleau’s alleged harassment and defamation of her, and that the judge in that case warned Bleau in her ruling that he was to no longer “harass” Janning.
FURTHER READING: See SWAPA’s response here
There is much more to this story, and if you’ve been following the case and want to get into the nitty gritty and the back and forth between all of them—including SWAPA, another named party in Janning’s suit—I encourage you to read all three documents embedded above.
For those still looking to blame the victim, I hope something like this never happens to you. Let’s remember how simple it really is. Janning was harmed in the workplace by a deranged pervert, and as the feds themselves said so powerfully, Michael Haak
“…had a duty to comport himself in a much more responsible manner,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Cunningham said, adding, “This is not the kind of aberrant behavior that anyone should accept.”
Hear, hear.
Thank you for reading. I wish you all a Happy New Year.
xoSara
