The Flight 587 Story: Sten Molin Unmasked, and the Predators That Remain
When it feels like nothing's changing, keep fighting.
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Right now there are at least two known serial rapist pilots employed by major commercial airlines.
That I know of.
These pilots have been sexually assaulting flight attendants for years with impunity. Both of these scumbags have been reported to management multiple times by multiple victims.*
They raped flight attendants, and the airline still paid them handsomely to pilot their aircraft, to wear the uniform, don the epaulets, and bear the responsibility for the safe transfer of hundreds of lives.
Can you imagine? (Rhetorical question. If you’re a regular reader here, you don’t have to imagine).
The sexual abuse within commercial airlines is flagrant, it’s violent, and it’s not a secret. Yet it’s still feels impossible to gain any ground. It’s oddly difficult to arrange for women to go to work and not be sexually assaulted by men.**
The absurdity of that statement is not lost on most of us, I know.
There is hope, though. There are a few cases I hope to write about soon, one involving a young twenty-something, but I have to wait for various things including victim permission, legal avenues to be exhausted, and discussions to play out. Stay tuned.
Why We Do This: ‘Don’t Forget About us’
The Sten Molin-as-innocent-victim-and-skilled-pilot of American Airlines Flight 587 narrative continues to be battered online.
Deservedly so.
I was heartened to see that Admiral Cloudberg, a respected aviation writer with a substantial readership, has acknowledged Sten Molin’s victims. I was in touch with her about this and she has made the step of adding a disclaimer at the bottom of her Flight 587 crash analysis.
Men (and occasionally women) like to argue with me and with Molin’s sexual assault victims online. It makes these fragile souls terribly uncomfortable when women name their assailants and describe their attacks whenever and wherever they want.
Tough.
We not only have the right to share Molin’s victims’ stories here and everywhere, but we have a duty to. He’s dead, but the institution that protected and enabled him continues to harbor and support other live predators, and the cycle goes on to ruin a new generation of women. Just skim the court filings in the recent Kimberly Goesling case for starters. Harrowing doesn’t begin to describe it.
You’re entitled to your feelings and your voice, but so are Molin’s victims. They are entitled to be heard, understood and empathized with. Plus, what you’re arguing is usually bullshit. The same people who act terribly concerned about the reputation of a dead man they didn’t know never ask about his living victims.
Not once do these anonymous trolls who care so much about a dead stranger’s precious reputation ask of his living victims—who remain in purgatory—Is she OK? are they OK?
Why is that? I’m glad you asked. It’s because they’re not actually worried about the reputation of a dead man they didn’t know.
They just don’t want to acknowledge the harm done to women. Sometimes, they admit they believe you—and then they tell the real truth: What’s the big deal? Get over it.
What you’re actually saying is that it makes you profoundly uncomfortable to see men’s bad behavior being called out. It freaks you out that women have a platform and you can’t stop them.
If you’re tempted to argue, But how many victims are there really? Remind yourself that one is too many.
If you find yourself splitting hairs about whether Molin’s teenage victims or “girlfriends” were 14, 15 or 16 in order to defend him, you might be a total creep. I’m here to remind you the exact dates don’t matter, because a 34-year-old grown-ass man shouldn’t be pursuing/raping/coercing sex teenage girls and bringing them into crew rest areas while on duty.
If you find yourself normalizing that behavior and saying it’s fine, I can’t help you.
Molin is never going to be held accountable or punished for raping and/or sexually assaulting all these women and underage girls. So they get to speak their truth. If you don’t like it, scroll on by.
There’s no one left to defend anymore. Don’t pretend there is.
I asked one of Molin’s flight attendant victims recently what she—and all of them—were hoping would happen by speaking out whenever they see a new crash analysis or docuseries minimizing the yawning*** pilot’s role in 587’s tragic end.
“Just don’t forget about us,” she replied. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. Do you?
The Other Kind of Denier
To be fair, there’s another type of angry person I still run into on social media who actually knew Molin and can’t reconcile the good old boy who loved music and cooking and never raped them, with the monster he really was. I have some sympathy for that, of course.
But I’ve lost patience for those who don’t do their homework and come at me publicly on my own pages (if you do that, your screenshots are fair game). I probably could have tried harder to reel this one in and attempt to have a good talk with her, but she dug her heels in and wasn’t going to hear it.
This woman who wrote these LinkedIn comments below (some of which are screenshotted here—this is the gist) wasn’t ready. Shame, because if she’d bother to read my stories and your comments, she’d have to know it’s all true.
(I’m sorry, but I have to take a moment to laugh at this woman’s ridiculous assertion “a short hookup wasn’t Sten’s style” I’m literally dying. Tell me you didn’t know Sten Molin without telling me you didn’t know Sten Molin. And no, I didn’t have “a short hookup” with him, whatever that even is).
When this all started back in November 2021, I had productive exchanges with women (and one male pilot) via DM or email in which we were utterly confused because of the different personalities Molin showed us, and we took our time to hear each other and talk out which one was real.
At one point I said to a woman friend of his, baffled, “Are we talking about the same person?” She was convinced he was a military hero (HE NEVER SERVED EVER. This is settled fact). I knew he wasn’t. So she sent a photo of the man I once was friends with and had that fateful weekend blind date with, and we understood then what we were dealing with. A compulsive liar with the same face but a bunch of different lives. We all began to accept who this monster really was.
It’s hard, but it’s time.
PREDATOR: The Book is Happening
The book proposal is nearly finished, and I have enough witnesses for a well-sourced piece of investigative journalism. BUT I WANT MORE. My future publisher will probably want more. So we don’t want to get complacent.
WITNESSES: I want to hear from you!
On that note…you’re invited
Recently I noticed a new Reddit group called r/survivorsofstenmolin had sprung up.
Shortly after I cruised through its posts, one of Molin’s victims/survivors stopped by to add this comment under one of my earlier Substack posts (find the full comment here):
For anyone here who is a victim of First Officer Sten Molin we have a Reddit page AND a Quora page group as well as the Facebook one where we are going to share some of our experiences with Molin. Anything you have feel free to post. You can do it confidentially you don’t have to use your name. We have also published in the Reddit FA group who featured a post. https://www.reddit.com/r/survivorsofstenmolin/ I have forwarded more emails that Molin harassed me with to be posted by group moderators plus myself. A lot of the really awful stuff can’t be included because it will just get banned but some of the milder harassment will give people an idea of what he subjected women to in this last years of his life.
And on the Janning case: A lot of you are here because you follow the Captain Christine Janning v. Southwest Airlines, Michael Haak, et. al. case, an egregious example of institutional betrayal, misogyny, and harm.
What’s going to be fascinating (horrifyingly so) is to watch the legal system play out with Southwest Airlines in front of you talking in real time about some of the mind-blowingly awful things you’ve read about here.
How to attend:
Honorable Judge Eric J. Netcher, Circuit Court Judge for the Ninth Judicial Circuit for Orange County, Florida, on Wednesday March, 6, 2024, beginning at 1:30 pm (EST) for a duration of sixty minutes (1 hour) via Video Conference.
Videoconference Hearing Procedures are conducted via Cisco WebEx. The link to be used for any remote proceedings is in this division is the following:
https://ninthcircuit.webex.com/webappng/sites/ninthcircuit/dashboard/pmr/40orange
Phone Number (audio only): 1-904-900-2303 or 408-418-9388
Access (for both numbers): 2339 961 4383
That’s all for now. Contact me anytime with comments, concerns, tips, for help, anything.
—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 crime reporting experience 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.
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.”
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.
*If you’re reading this thinking, How the heck did she know about MY pilot rapist?! Sadly, you can be reasonably certain I’m writing about a totally different pilot rapist.
**I don’t play the “not all men” game. It’s a given. I’ve heard about and met some stand-up guys along this journey. Fact is, most rapists are men, and most men are not rapists. I’d sure like to see more taking a stand against this behavior, though. Too many cowards and enablers out there for my taste.
***Read the comments around The Landing. You’ll see analysis of his singing and constant yawning in a cockpit that was supposed to be sterile but was far from it.
Thankyou for highlighting the groups Sara. Two pilots raping women at the moment. That is sickening. What in sweet Jesus name is going on? Please expose them.
A note on the reddit group. It is hard to post the really awful stuff Molin sent and also his worst actions because the group keeps getting flagged and posts taken down. I know some of you reading this sent photos and letters that can’t be posted or in some cases were posted and unfortunately removed. I just want you to know WE didn’t remove them. Reddit did.
Also we want to get together a “don’t fly with this guy” list but that will be confidential as apparently there are defamation issues involved.
Another great article Sara. I am a little rattled right now reading that there are two offenders just like Sten Molin out there on the loose, doing to others what Molin did to do many of us.
God bless you all and fly safe. Remember always be a girls girl and stick with your crew. We have each other’s backs and that is what counts.