PHOENIX: A lawsuit filed towards Southwest Airways by a flight attendant alleges pilots on a 2017 flight had an iPad streaming video from a hidden digital camera in a toilet in one of many airline’s planes.
Southwest responded on Saturday, denying it locations cameras in plane bathrooms and by calling the 2017 incident an “inappropriate try at humour” not condoned by the corporate.
The lawsuit alleges flight attendant Renee Steinaker noticed an iPad streaming video from the aircraft’s ahead lavatory when she entered the cockpit to be the required second individual within the cockpit when the pilot left to make use of the toilet about 2 hours right into a Feb 27, 2017, flight to Phoenix from Pittsburgh.
In line with the swimsuit, Steinaker noticed the pilot within the streaming video on the iPad and the co-pilot “with a panicked look on his face” acknowledged that the iPad was streaming from a digital camera within the lavatory however asserted it was a “new safety and top-secret safety measure put in in all of Southwest’s Boeing 737-800 planes.”
The swimsuit stated Steinaker took a cellphone photograph of the iPad video, supplied the photograph with a report back to Southwest administration and was warned by a supervisor to not inform anyone in regards to the incident.
In line with the swimsuit, Steinaker was warned, “if this obtained out, if this went public, nobody, I imply nobody, would ever fly our airline once more”.
Court docket filings by attorneys for Dallas-based Southwest and the 2 pilots denied the livestreaming allegations, and Southwest on Saturday issued statements saying it is going to vigorously contest the swimsuit and denying it locations cameras in plane bathrooms.
“When the incident occurred two years in the past, we investigated the allegations and addressed the state of affairs with the crew concerned,” the corporate’s second assertion stated. “We will affirm from our investigation that there was by no means a digital camera within the toilet; the incident was an inappropriate try at humour which the corporate didn’t condone.”
The swimsuit towards Southwest, an organization recognized for its joking and irreverent behaviour by flight crews, and the 2 pilots was introduced Saturday by attorneys for Steinaker and her husband, additionally a Southwest flight attendant.
The swimsuit was initially filed on behalf of the Steinakers, who reside in metro Phoenix, in an Arizona state court docket in October 2018 and was moved in late August to federal court docket in Phoenix.
An legal professional for the couple, Ronald L M Goldman, stated the alleged livestreaming would compromise security by distracting crew members and intrude on the privateness of these utilizing the toilet.
“The cockpit of a industrial airliner is just not a playground for peeping toms,” Goldman stated in an announcement.
An preliminary model of the swimsuit alleged that each spouses skilled discrimination, harassment and retaliation in reference to Renee Steinaker’s reporting of the in-flight incident.
A later model of the swimsuit didn’t embrace these allegations however stated they might be restored if the federal Equal Employment Alternative Fee accredited suing on these allegations.
No trial date has been set for the swimsuit, which seeks specified awards based mostly on varied damages claims.
