A Southwest Airlines pilot has filed a lawsuit against the airline, her union, and a former coworker who admitted last year to locking the cockpit door during a flight and then stripping in front of the other pilots.
Christine Janning claims that after she reported Michael Haak to the company and the FBI, Southwest responded by grounding her, that it did so despite Michael Haak allegedly having a history of sexual misconduct, and that managers had disparaged her in memoranda.
She also claims that the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association betrayed her and colluded with the airline. Haak is being sued by her for sexual assault. He was given probation after entering a guilty plea to a federal misdemeanour charge of engaging in a lewd, indecent, or filthy act last year.
Michael Salnick, Haak’s lawyer, claimed on Wednesday that his client never changed and only undressed after Janning persuaded him to.
Calls made to Southwest and the union requesting comment were not returned.
The Associated Press typically doesn’t name people who claim to have been the victims of sex crimes, but Janning agreed to have her identity used through her attorney.
Before August 2020, when she was his co-pilot on a flight from Philadelphia to Orlando, Janning had never met Haak, according to the lawsuit, which was filed last week in Orange County, Florida.
She claims that Haak, a 27-year airline veteran, exploited his seniority rights the day before to relieve another pilot who was supposed to be in charge of the trip. Janning thinks this is the case because he noticed that the co-pilot was a woman.
According to Janning, Haak informed her that this was his last flight and that he still had something he wanted to accomplish before retiring when they reached cruising altitude.
She claimed that he locked the door so that no flight attendant could go inside.
He then set the aircraft on autopilot, took off his clothes, started watching porn on his laptop, and engaged in a sexual conduct for 30 minutes while recording himself on camera.
Salnick claimed that Janning was the one who questioned Haak about his final plans before retirement. She told him to go ahead when he claimed he wanted to fly naked and then made attempts toward him once he had taken off his clothes, according to Salnick. He claimed Haak refused them and vehemently denied that an obscene behaviour had taken place.
Haak described the incident as “a consenting prank” that went awry at his sentence hearing the previous year.
Frank Podesta, Janning’s lawyer, refuted any claims that she encouraged Haak or made sexual approaches.
Despite being “horrified,” Janning continued to fly the aircraft while shooting pictures “to create a record,” according to the lawsuit. The landing was successful.
Additionally, Haak continued to fly for an additional three weeks after that.
Janning waited three months to report the incident to a Southwest employee relations investigator. She claimed she waited because her supervisor had previously disparaged her in front of a male coworker. She claimed to have requested that the investigator not let her supervisor know, but she did.
Janning claims she was informed shortly after that the airline’s probe was finished since Haak had retired. When Janning approached the FBI, they charged Haak.
She claims that after a 2008 incident involving a flight attendant, Southwest sent Haak to a sexual harassment rehabilitation facility in Montreal.
Janning said that she was grounded for more than three months in punishment for the FBI investigation, costing her some of her compensation. Before she could start working again, she had to complete “unnecessary” flight simulator training.
She added that the FBI had to arrange for her to board a United Airlines flight in order to get home to Florida on the day she was grounded because the carrier had left her stranded in Denver. She claimed a Southwest manager circulated a note to over 25 staff members “that made flimsy charges” regarding her flying ability.
She claimed that once she contacted the union, its management did not assist her but instead wrote a letter to the court hearing Haak’s misdemeanour case claiming that he had a “spotless” record.
There are no planned hearings.
Following a colleague’s self-exposure, the pilot sues Southwest.
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