A stewardess from the American low-cost airline Southwest accuses two pilots of voyeurism. On an iPad in the cockpit, to her dismay, she saw straight streamed images appear from the aircraft’s toilet. The pilots had apparently installed a hidden camera. Stewardess Renee Steinaker says she was stalked by her employer to keep the incident indoors, reports Arizona Central.
The incident occurred on February 2017 during a flight from Pittsburgh to Phoenix. Stewardess Renee Steinaker was ordered to go to the cockpit after 2 hours and 30 minutes. This is Southwest’s prescribed procedure when one of the two pilots makes a sanitary stop. Two crew members must be present in the cockpit at all times.
Captain Terry Graham left for the bathroom. A little later, Steinaker heard pee sounds and noticed an iPad placed on the windscreen. She saw how the captain was urinating in the toilet, it says in the indictment. Copilot Ryan Russell pulled away white and hung up the stewardess with a story about a new secret security measure of the airline. Steinaker didn’t believe it. She took a picture of the iPad and informed her superiors after the flight.
As if nothing had happened, the pilots were allowed to start the return flight as usual. More than two years after the event, they are still working for the company. According to her lawyer, Steinaker has been put under a lot of pressure to keep the incident quiet. She and her husband, also working for Southwest, had to deal with an increased number of performance checks, which came across as “threatening and bizarre”. According to her lawyer, Steinaker was told several times that “if this happens, nobody wants to fly with Southwest anymore”.
Arizona Central asked and received a short response from the airline. “The safety of our customers and employees is our absolute priority. Southwest does not place cameras in the toilets of its planes. We refrain from commenting on the pending disputes.”
