A Michigan woman said a creep sexually assaulted her as she slept on a Spirit Airlines flight home from Atlanta this week, according to new reports.
Tia Jackson, 22, of Westland, told FOX 2 that she had dozed off on a flight back to Detroit Tuesday morning, when she felt the man next to her reaching down her pants and attempting to conceal the act with his winter coat.
“He had taken his coat off,” Jackson told the outlet. “I thought he had his coat on him, to cover him because he was cold. But he really had it over him to hide that he was trying to touch me while he was also touching himself.”
Jackson jumped up to confront the man, she told the station.
“I said, ‘Hey don’t touch me, get off me, stop touching me,'” Jackson said. “And it was like because I made a scene, because I kind of embarrassed him and scared him, he said, ‘Shh.'”
Jackson immediately notified the flight attendant — who in turn asked her to move, she told CNN. But she didn’t want to leave her friend — who was sitting to the other side of her — and said she felt she was being blamed for the pervy passenger’s actions.
“He touched my bare ass!” she said she told the airline employee. “He needs to be moved!”
In a statement, the airline said it takes Jackson’s claim seriously and has been in contact with her.
Tia JacksonFOX 2“Our flight attendants on board that flight learned of the alleged incident 18 minutes prior to landing when the guest pressed the call button and received immediate attention,” Spirit Airlines said. “Once she told the flight attendant who came to her seat, the flight attendant directed her to a different seat. The cabin crew wanted to move her, as opposed to him, because the move would have left him with an empty seat on one side and an aisle on the other.”
The airline told CNN that law enforcement began investigating “immediately after the flight arrived.”
“We are supporting law enforcement as they investigate,” the carrier said. “Questions about that investigation should be directed to them.”
Federal investigators are now probing the case, FOX 2 reported.
Jackson told the outlet she wants both her assailant and Spirit Airlines to pay for the incident.
“I feel he needs to be held accountable for sure because obviously if he was bold enough to try this today, I don’t know how many times he has been ‘friendly’ on other flights,” she said.
