FBI issues advice to help prevent sexual assaults on planes

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FBI issues advice to help prevent sexual assaults on planes | Secret Flying

The FBI has issued advice to air passengers to help prevent sexual assaults on planes.

 

FBI special agent David Gates has suggested five tips to help prevent sexual assaults on a flight.

 

Agent Gates, who is based out of Los Angeles International Airport, said the agency is seeing more reports of in-flight sexual assault than ever before.

 

The five tips are:

 

  1. Trust your gut: Offenders will often test their victims, sometimes pretending to brush against them to see how they react or if they wake up. ‘Don’t give them the benefit of the doubt,’ agent Gates says. If such behaviour occurs, reprimand the person immediately, and consider asking to be moved to another seat.
  2. Don’t knock yourself out: Recognise that mixing alcohol with sleeping pills or other medication on an overnight flight increases your risk.
  3. Choose an aisle seat: If you are arranging for a child to fly unaccompanied, try to reserve an aisle seat so flight attendants can keep a closer watch on them. The FBI has seen victims as young as 8 years old.
  4. Create a barrier: If your seatmate is a stranger, no matter how polite he or she may seem, keep the armrest between you down.
  5. Report it: If an incident happens, report it immediately to the flight crew and ask that they record the attacker’s identity and report the incident. “Flight attendants and captains represent authority on the plane,” Gates said. “We don’t want them to be police officers, but they can alert law enforcement, and they can sometimes deal with the problem in the air.” The flight crew can also put the offender on notice, which might prevent further problems.

 

Research shows that nearly 70 percent of flight attendants say they have been sexually harassed while doing their jobs.

 

Despite the prominent #MeToo movement, 68 percent of flight attendants feel there have been no efforts by airlines to address the problem in the last year.

 

The FBI has launched a poster as part of its campaign to fight in-flight sexual assault, urging passengers to report any incidents by visiting tips.fbi.gov, calling 1-800-CALL-FBI, or visiting a local FBI office.