Woman intervenes after seeing man harassing teenage girl on a plane
![A teenager (not pictured) faced harassment from a fellow passenger during a flight. [Photo: Getty]](https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/jcP4W0w2wVTiqj31Jc6LAg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyNDI7aD02Nzc-/https://media.zenfs.com/en/homerun/feed_manager_auto_publish_494/84f5b6af99fabd741ea12dbc6c723b99)
A woman has shared how she stepped in after witnessing a teenager being harassed by a much older man on a flight.
Journalist Joanna Chiu was flying alone when she overheard a man “appearing in his late thirties” talking to a teenager in the row behind her.
She said she “couldn’t avoid” listening in when she heard the man getting “very familiar” with his fellow passenger.
When she heard him asking the teenager for a “dirty” photo, she couldn’t help but get involved, she narrated on Twitter to her 36,000 followers.
Thread about airplane creeps: I’m on a plane from a late-evening stopover from and was very tired and had a row to myself to sleep but couldn’t avoid noticing what was going on in the row behind me.
— Joanna Chiu 趙淇欣 (@joannachiu) March 25, 2019
A man appearing in his late thirties was obviously delighted to be seated next to a teenager separated from the rest of her family. He started off by asking about her career plans and laughed when she said she wanted to be CEO and kept giving her ridiculous advice.
— Joanna Chiu 趙淇欣 (@joannachiu) March 25, 2019
She was friendly and he seemed to take that as a welcome cue to get very familiar and started teasing her and kept saying that he wanted to take her out to eat, which she was ignoring. At this point I had to stay awake in case anything went further than that.
— Joanna Chiu 趙淇欣 (@joannachiu) March 25, 2019
It did, and as soon as he asked for a “dirty” photo while leaning close to her I turned around and rage-whispered exactly what I thought of that and he didn’t say anything back and went off to use the washroom.
— Joanna Chiu 趙淇欣 (@joannachiu) March 25, 2019
In the now-viral thread, Chiu tells how she sought help from airline staff to have the man moved from his seat.
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Another woman seated behind him was listening and monitoring too and while the man was gone she let the teen know that she had the right to change seats and that she was just behind her if she needed any help. I went to get a flight attendant and informed her of what was going on
— Joanna Chiu 趙淇欣 (@joannachiu) March 25, 2019
They checked other witness accounts and the head of the flight service (a woman) asked the man to move. He resisted then started swearing at me and asked to talk to the boss and the head flight attendant said “I’m the boss, this is really serious and we could land the plane.”
— Joanna Chiu 趙淇欣 (@joannachiu) March 25, 2019
He moved. The attendants checked in with the young woman and wrote up a report. They handled the situation well as far as I could tell, and it’s good to know other adult women passengers on the plane were paying attention and taking action while trying not to embarrass the teen.
— Joanna Chiu 趙淇欣 (@joannachiu) March 25, 2019
Despite having managed to make the man move, Chiu voices her concern at not knowing whether the man will be monitored on future flights.
However, the story ends with the man being stopped by security upon his departure from the plane.
It’s so disturbing there are predatory people out there who act like they have no idea what they’re doing is wrong. It’s unclear if the man is going to be monitored by flight crew the next time he flies.
— Joanna Chiu 趙淇欣 (@joannachiu) March 25, 2019
Just walked off the plane and security was ready to pull him aside to talk to him and he looked like he was sweating bullets.
— Joanna Chiu 趙淇欣 (@joannachiu) March 25, 2019
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While this story is shocking, it certainly isn’t the only example of sexual harassment on public transport.
Last year, a New York based Reddit user shared how she relied on a stranger to help her after being verbally harassed and followed by a fellow commuter.
Closer to home, almost a third of British women who use public transport have received unwanted attention in the past year alone – despite Yahoo UK discovering not one of the UK’s transport bodies provide anti-harassment guidelines.
