Want to Be in a Documentary Exposing Sexual Assaults on Flight Attendants in the Workplace?
Producers want to talk to victims (your identity can be obscured), including victims of late American Airlines pilot Sten Molin
The usual trigger and content warnings: Discussion of sexual assault and rape.
You can reach me confidentially at my new address: MeTooAirlines@proton.me
If you are considering settling or are being pressured into signing an NDA, attorney Lisa Bloom has told me you may call her for advice anytime at no charge. Whatever you do, whatever you decide, get a good lawyer.
You can continue to reach Christine Janning’s lawyer Frank Podesta if you have any information or queries regarding her lawsuit against Southwest Airlines, Michael Haak and their union: StopAirlineAssault@proton.me
I spent over an hour on Zoom with two respected documentary producers last week.
This reputable TV documentary production company in New York contacted me about the revelations exposed on The Landing about pilots and flight attendants. They are investigative journalists with strong track records and are in active development for a U.S. TV network for a documentary series about how flight attendants are the forgotten heroes of the airline industry—how they have often been exploited and abused.
They want to tell the stories of how flight attendants have been the victims of sexual assault, particularly from pilots. They believe that their series can help break the hidden scandal which has been simmering in the industry for so long.
Are you interested in talking to them? If so they have told me that any initial conversation with you will be entirely confidential at this stage. Please send me brief details of your experience, which will not be aired on TV. Then, if you are willing to give permission, they are looking for people who can talk to them on a Zoom interview, where your identity can be concealed. Again, this will not be made public but shared internally.
They are looking to speak to FAs from pretty much any airline, as I understand it. We know there are reported victims of sexual harassment and/or assault at Southwest Airlines and United, to name two—if you’re one of them, please reach out! But the documentary also expects to be covering one particularly prolific and dangerous predator: American Airlines First officer Sten Molin, who was at the controls when flight 587 tragically crashed in Queens in 2001, taking 265 lives.
They Can’t Silence Everyone
Multiple sources tell me American Airlines is continuing to settle with flight attendants who have been victims of sexual assault going back decades, a process I first heard about around Christmastime, two months after the series I wrote—“The Pilot & Me,” about American Airlines flight 587 and my friendship with Molin— was posted on Medium. (It has since been removed, and at the request of his victims, will never be re-posted).
What followed after I put the story all over my social media pages was a tsunami of such specific, gut-wrenching and credible messages and social media comments that it spawned a scramble to shut down women who were speaking out all over the internet about their attacks by Molin and other pilots still operating at American Airlines, I’m told. (I have asked the company if they have received reports of assaults on FAs by current pilots, some who are now executives, but they have never responded to me).
They have not responded to queries about reports that they have been settling with flight attendant victims, some of which reported being raped (which is a felony), and requiring non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to do so, more than 20 years after their assaults. As we know, at least some of these women say they reported their assaults to the company years ago but were reportedly ignored, rebuffed, retaliated against, or brushed off.
(There is nothing wrong with settling. These victims need to do whatever is best for them—it is their choice.)
I expect as soon as this story goes out, there will be rounds of calls from the airline to those who have settled, reminding them of their NDAs.
That’s OK.
We know there are victims who haven’t settled. We also know there are victims the airline cannot settle with—for example, women and girls who did not work for the airline but who Molin raped and assaulted, gave rides home to, invited to his condo in Connecticut for “computer lessons.”
If you can read the testimony one of his then-15-year-old victims left under one of my articles and not be sickened, saddened, horrified, and/or, like many of us, shed tears, your moral compass is irreparably broken. I’m not going to link to it here, because she gets to choose where the comment exists on the internet, and for how long.
This leads us to ponder one of the most upsetting questions of all: If he had been stopped as soon as his fellow employees allegedly began reporting assaults by him, would he have been able to continue offending? Could stopping him earlier have saved other women and girls from traumatizing assaults?
(I want to add that the victims of the crash are always on my mind when I write these stories. I will write more about that in the coming months. The losses of life and the horror suffered by the families left behind are incalculable, and they are never forgotten).
This is not a Secret
Trolls, save your energy. Please don’t bother sending abusive or threatening messages based on this story. You will be recorded, reported to relevant authorities, and then ignored. Don’t be a cliche.
I get it, you want to bury unpleasant events. But here’s the thing: The victims get to be recognized. Their job is not to worry about or take care of the horrific amount of collateral damage this man’s actions will inevitably still cause. Those hurt, damaged and in some cases utterly destroyed by what he did are allowed to do whatever they need to to find peace, justice, or any semblance of either. Anyone who enabled him or continues to enable other alleged offenders at any airline has much to answer for, too; the goal is to prevent one more woman from experiencing this kind of trauma in the workplace.
I tried to go through all my correspondence about Molin’s attacks again this weekend to come up with an estimate of how many separate victims I’ve heard from. I’m going to say 40-50 for now. I had to take a break before doing a full count.
Someone wrote to me recently, “Don’t open this can of worms.”
Buddy: The can was opened a year ago. The worms are out and they’re halfway to Cincinnati by now.
I am not revealing a secret today. Everyone knows. Testimony of the damage he wrought before the crash even happened is everywhere on the internet. Some claims were on Twitter before I wrote my original story in late September 2021 (I didn’t know it then).
I’ve been getting threats on my life and vile insults for months because of this story. I got my first intimidation call from a powerful man at 19 years old. A famous coach down south called me, a teenager, to scare me into backing off a story—my first newspaper investigation as a budding journalist for the college paper—about funny things going on around funding for men’s vs. women’s sports.
It didn’t work then and it’s not going to work now. Talk to Ronan Farrow, who wrote Catch & Kill about the lengths Harvey Weinstein, his company and his co-conspirators went to in order to shut down the sexual assault victims before they could go public, if you want to know about how bad the harassment and intimidation tactics can get—and how it ultimately doesn’t work. P.S.: There is no better way to know you’re on the right track than receiving threatening calls and messages.
One more thing about the dam bursting on this news one year ago: I’m not the first reporter these women have reached out to. Every time a glowing article or a defense of Molin was printed, at least one victim reached out and asked them to listen. None of these established journalists and aviation reporters did anything, wrote anything, gave these victims any kind of platform or respect at all. All of them are men.
Shame on every one of you for ignoring them.
Much more to come.
Part II later in the week.
*edit: Ah, now i know who it is. This is why we can't have nice things. It's all coming from one person and they can't do anything beyond anonymous online harassment. Ignore it. I do.
Comment deleted for playing into the very outdated culture of fear hanging over this issue. Intimidation tactics aren’t tolerated here. Everything is out there all over the internet, and anyone joining the documentary can stay anonymous. The dramatic statements and vague warnings of repercussions are getting old.
It’s 2022. We can do hard things. A ton of people have spoken out now and not only are we all still here, some have been compensated for pain and suffering to some degree, thus acknowledging the pain and suffering occurred in the first place.
It’s on twitter, Reddit, medium, LinkedIn, Facebook, Substack, and easily findable. I haven’t checked TikTok but who knows.
Speak or don’t speak. But don’t make your choice based on anonymous scare tactics.
Do we know how many women are coming forward to these producers so far? I’d be interested but I wouldn’t want to go it alone if that makes sense.