A mother and daughter who were allegedly sexually assaulted during a flight claim Delta Air Lines not only did nothing to stop their attacker, but actively enabled him by over-serving him drinks.
The victims, a mother and her teenage daughter, have sued Delta for gross negligence, according to Fox Business. The complaint was filed in the Eastern District of New York and seeks compensation for the victims.
The lawsuit claims that attendants on a flight between JFK Airport and Athens Greece — a nine-hour flight — "blatantly ignored" the victims' pleas for assistance and continued to serve an allegedly already drunk and belligerent man seated next to them.
Over the course of the trip, the man was reportedly served 10 vodka drinks and a glass of wine, according to court documents viewed by Fox Business.
"The intoxicated Delta passenger appeared to be getting drunker and drunker as the Delta flight attendants continued serving him alcohol," the lawsuit claims.
The litigation claims that the man's aggression increased alongside his intoxication, manifesting in him allegedly inappropriately touching and verbally harassing the women during the flight.
The man, allegedly from Connecticut, reportedly made "obscene gestures" at the victims, and demanded personal identifying information from the daughter. The girl's mother stepped in to tell the man she was a minor, to which he allegedly yelled that he did not care and then tried to grab the mother's arm.
The victims reportedly told the flight attendants that the man was making them feel unsafe and asked that they move him and stop serving him alcohol. The attendants reportedly told the women to "be patient."
An attendant did eventually address their complaints, and told the alleged drunk to "stop talking" to the victims. That resulted in the man becoming angry and allegedly yelling out that the victims were "f****** b*****."
The lawsuit also claims that the incident caused the teen girl to experience a panic attack. She put her head in her mother's lap for comfort, after which the man allegedly reached under her shirt and touched her bra clasp. The girl fled her seat. Once she was gone, the man allegedly touched the mother's leg, running his hand up her thigh, until she too fled her seat.
After the alleged sexual assault, the mother said she again pleaded with the flight attendants to change their seats, but they were again told there was nothing that could be done.
A man on the flight stepped up and offered to switch seats with the teen girl. He sat between the drunk man and the mother for the remainder of the flight, according to the lawsuit.
Once the plane landed, Delta reportedly allowed the man to leave the plane without notifying the local police or US authorities about what happened. Instead, they offered the mother and daughter 5,000 airline miles as recompense.
“What happened to them during a flight was not just a nightmare, it was completely preventable,” Evan Brustein, the victims' lawyer, told the New York Post.
Delta offered a statement to The Independent regarding the lawsuit.
“While we don’t have any specific comment on this pending litigation, Delta has zero tolerance for customers who engage in inappropriate or unlawful behavior. Nothing is more important than the safety of our customers and our people.”
