What you can do while in the air, after

• Commercial flights are not law-free zones and sexual abuse is a crime.
• The FBI reported that inflight sexual assaults increased by 30% from 2018 to 2019.
• The FBI maintains jurisdiction over investigating crimes on U.S. aircraft, airspace or assaults involving American citizens.

On a recent flight, the large muscular man seated in the middle seat next to me was looking at naked footage of himself on his phone. He was tilting his phone towards me and zooming in on his penis.

Feeling extremely violated and fearful that he was going to touch me, I quietly got up to alert the flight attendant. They went to speak to the man, but they wouldn’t reseat me. I didn’t know what the passenger was capable of and worried that he would retaliate for telling on him.