Peter DelVecchia is white. He was flying Frontier Airlines, seated in an exit row with his adopted black son from Raleigh to Las Vegas back on March 28, 2019.
A flight attendant asked the boy’s age, and he replied he was 12. They were informed that he was too young (the requirement is 15). They were reseated together in a different row without argument. But to the flight atendants on board, there was “something off” about the passengers.
One crewmember concluded that the boy did not read or speak English, even though they hadn’t spoken with him. They based this just on his race and ethinc features. And they also suggested the boy was lying about his age because “he looked old in the face.”
After takeoff, both passengers fell asleep. A flight attendant relayed the “something off” comments to the lead member of the cabin crew – and, according to a lawsuit – added completely false details to the story, such as the father answering for the boy and insisting on a window seat so the child communicate with others.
The front flight attendant convened the crew and announced she saw the father “stroking” the child’s face “up and down.” That’s when the crew decided to report “the situation” to the captain so police and FBI could meet the flight on arrival.
- Plaintiffs allege the captain instructed the first officer to send messages over ACARS to Frontier ground personnel asserting the passengers were engaged in “inappropriate physical contact.”
- With about 2.5 hours left in flight, the passengers say the captain instructed a flight attendant to physically separate father and son for the remainder of the flight.
- And, they say, the flight attendant staged a “trash run,” briefly passed their row, then returned claiming he saw inappropriate touching, and embellished the report in the cockpit while omitting that both were asleep. A second flight attendant allegedly told the pilots multiple attendants had “independently verified” the claim.
- The flight attendant then reportedly rushed the row, shoved past a passenger, and pummeled the still-sleeping father on the back of the neck and head, causing a concussion.
- He forced the child to move hack to seat 30F in the rear of the aircraft and directed an off‑duty police officer passenger to sit in the aisle seat to block the child’s path and keep him there. The kid was upset and crying and kept asking to go back to his dad, but he was held for the remainder of the flight.
On the ground, the child was held at the rear of the aircraft while everyone else deplaned. The father says he was told by a crewmember, “Go on outside—the FBI is waiting for your ass” and told another passenger that “someone’s hand was on someone’s crotch.”
They were taken into custody by Las Vegas police and FBI agents, kept separated, and the father was questioned for six hours before being released. Officers ultimately concluded nothing inappropriate happened and, the father says, told him he’d been the victim of a “racist incident.” There was no corroboration of the flight attendant’s claim about face caressing or other improper touching.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals notes that after landing, a flight attendant mentioned a human trafficking class to police and that the passengers were of different races. (DelVecchia v. Frontier Airlines, Inc., et al., No. 24‑5847 9th Cir. Feb. 9, 2026)
The passengers are suing. It’s taken nearly six years, and the federal appeals court has kept their claim against the airline alive, saying a jury could find the mid‑flight separation decision arose from disbelief they were related “given their different races,” and more general suspicion because they were of different races which is enough to get past summary judgment.
Frontier Airlines, though, takes the position that:
- Crew were “mistaken in hindsight” but their actions were race‑neutral. The captain ordered separation based on child‑endangerment concerns and the captain testified he wasn’t aware of plaintiffs’ races until the end of the flight.
- Even if comments like “awkward” and “unusual” were made by flight attendants, that doesn’t expressly reference race.
Race aside, the father’s testimony that he was struck multiple times (plus medical evidence consistent with post‑concussive symptoms) creates a fact dispute for a jury.
And there’s no dispute that the son was ordered to relocate and an off‑duty officer was placed to block his path. So there was involuntary confinement and the dispute is whether it was justified. According to the appeals court, it’s for a jury to decide whether Forntier Airlines acted reasonably to suspected child endangerment. I’d bet this case settles before trial.
I’ve written about a Frontier passenger leaving Las Vegas who was accused of trafficking their own daughter.. and about a retired cop who sued American Airlines after being accused of trafficking his own wife on their honeymoon flight.
Airline and hotel employees are taught to use their prejudices to spot and report human trafficking, and this often works out badly. Flight attendants are told they need to be on the lookout, and you have to sympathize with the position that puts them in. Imagine if they didn’t say something when they could have stopped a bad situation? That would haunt them. So better to raise the accusation or flag innocent people for law enforcement to sort out. And that gives you situations like,
- An African American social service worker was traveling with a white baby and accused of kidnapping by an American Airlines flight attendant as a result. Delta accused grandparents of trafficking their mixed-race grandson.
- Armed Port Authority police boarded an American Airlines plane at New York JFK because a flight attendant saw an Asian American woman follow her hispanic husband to the lavatory (he was feeling unwell) and saw that they shared an orange juice. The flight attendant called for a sex trafficking investigation. It found their drivers licenses displayed the same home address because they were married, just different races. American American accused a black musician of trafficking his mixed-race kids, too.
- Cindy McCain once fabricated a story about catching a toddler being trafficked at the Phoenix airport.
- Southwest Airlines demanded to see Facebook posts when a white mother checked in with her mixed-race son, claiming this was ‘federal law’.
This family is on a holiday weekend adventure to support @Kenzie4bs at @usabasketball U18 trials. 💙💛🐻 pic.twitter.com/cbAcRdKyhJ
— Lindsay Gottlieb (@CalCoachG) May 26, 2018
Hotel staff, too, are trained by the Department of Homeland Security to report guests with too many used condoms in the trash, as well as:
- frequent use of the “Do Not Disturb” sign (you’re tired and don’t want to be bothered)
- guests who avert their eyes or don’t make eye contact (you’re tired and don’t want to be bothered)
- people with “lower quality clothing than companions” (no one ever accused me of fashion)
- people who have “suspicious tattoos” (which just means you’re from Austin or Portland)
- having multiple computers, cell phones, and other technology (you’re a blogger)
- “presence of photography equipment” (you’re a blogger)
- refusal of cleaning services for multiple days (you ‘made a green choice’ or ‘fear Covid’)
- rooms paid for with cash or a rechargeable credit card (you have to unload your gift card purchases somehow)
- guests with few personal possessions (you refuse to check a bag because you’re a frequent traveler)
See something, say something, when you’re encouraging amateurs to do it, leads to so many false positives that real cases of sex trafficking seem likely to get less attention. Employees think they are ‘trained’ when they’re really using their prejudices – often, though not always, against mixed race families.
Wow. Just……wow……
Before anyone says “better safe than sorry” in defense of the FAs, the key here is that they apparently LIED about actual events.
I hope they get a huge settlement. Even if one is forgiving of being overly concerned about trafficking, ***lies*** place this on an entirely different scale.
Your resident bigots are gonna love this one, Gary! View from the (right) wing is so back!
Gary. I’m a diamond and million miler on delta. My rights were violated on a flight Sunday. Do you have a email I can give you the details and get some suggestions. Thx. Jeff taratoot.
Well now, isn’t this rich?! An industry that has moved so far left on the social political scale that it couldn’t be pushed any further by force now admitting that they train their employees to make judgements about others based on the very attributes for which anyone would be terminated without question otherwise. I’ll bet that admission stung like none other!
This begs the question: is this a case of employer-supported double standards & hypocrisy or just selective application of politically-left worldview mentality?
“Seeing sonething and saying something” is a concept that I fully support but unfortunately, seeing something and saying something has proven to end careers. The problem is, if you see something and say something, you better damn well hope that you’re right because if you’re wrong, you can plan for a long journey through litigation, potentially a loss of your job, and whatever the hell else the victim class can come up with to suck out of you.
I didn’t read anything here that came even remotely close to justifying the actions of this flight crew. They better have more than this when they go in front of a jury otherwise they’re going to find themselves in the unemployment line right where they should be.
This sounds like an episode of racist flight attendants gone’ wild.
Serious question, 1990: What are you expecting the “resident bigots” to say in this case?
Sky waitresses doing what they do, because they’re too ugly to work the pole any more.
@Aaron can you twist pretzels into knots like that?
What happened here sounds like another case of giving a bazooka to a kitten. Here’s just one (not unrealistic) scenario.
FA receives human trafficking training. FA is tired, burned out. FA tends to take a zero-tolerance, more confrontational approach with passengers. FA thinks they see something. Other FAs circle wagons hard and fast. Personal moral compasses kick in (no one likes a child molester). FAs over-read and embellish in an effort to “get the bastard.”
There has to be a way to better identify the bad players from everyone else. More context.
It is important to drive home how incredibly rare actual trafficking occurs on airplanes. There’s less than 5 cases I can find in the past 10 years. On the other hand, as the article states, you can find dozens of cases of children being traumatized by well-meaning flight attendants.
Lot of he said/she said here. None of us were on the plane. Father may have been innocently doing things that are part of the training flight attendants receive. And I will bet you it’s crappy online training with no ability to ask questions or ask for more input. Like the DEI crap put out on LI Learning.
And maybe it was an over zealous FA albeit working for Frontier god knows what they see in any given month.
When you hire ghetto, uneducated employees then you can expect to be sued often.
I hope criminal charges are made on the cabin crew members who perpetuated this farce and further hope that they are found guilty. That plus a huge civil lawsuit against the airline for the airline’s part in creating this mistreatment with hopes that the airline is found liable. It is sad to see some posters defend large corporations and their out of control employees.
Overkill leads to false accusations and litigations, and sometimes, terminations.
@Thing 1 — Let them speak for themselves. @Walter Barry, @Andy S, @Not Scott, @Coolio, and the others… What’s your take on this multi-racial family, here? Perhaps, someone else will mention a prominent civil rights attorney… Heh, wasn’t Frontier the airline with the pilot wearing the red-hat…
I don’t think there has been a proven human trafficking case reported by a flight attendant. ( gate agent once but the girls fessed up to involvement with a inappropriate dude prior to LE showing up.) It’s always good to keep your eyes open, but it ends with reporting, not vigilante actions.
How was the father able to book an exit row in the first place?
Whole thing is unacceptable. If a passenger that you suspect is engaged in Human Trafficking on an Aircraft then no action should be taken. It should be handled by the authorities on the ground. This is exactly why we have law enforcement.
Its very much akin to Target or Walmart not engaging with criminals they call the cops to handle it.
@1990. I’m in a multiracial marriage with two kids who are both in multiracial/ethnic marriages. I asked because you seemed to anticipate specific types of comments from some readers. I was genuinely wondering if you expected them to blame the dad and/or defend the FAs making things up. I was curious as to whether your prediction would prove accurate.
Based on my original post, I think you can see my personal take on this incident.
I find it unlikely that traffickers are paying for and using commercial domestic flights to move victims. FAs are not trained law enforcement nor social workers. A couple of hours of video training is not going to make them able to really recognize trafficking. What’s more typical in North America is that victims are hidden in vans, cars, trucks, etc. Possibly on buses. A flight requires providing government issued photo i.d., and those are hard to fake these days. Combined with TSA using facial recognition software to match your actual face to your i.d. Clearly the FAs don’t know any of this. My child is a different race than I am, with a different last name than mine. She’s traveled with both or one parent many times, and not once has anyone involved in air travel assumed they were trafficked. The one time it was called into question? A CBP checkpoint out in Arizona off I-8. They were sleeping in the back seat of the SUV. The officer asked who she was, looking suspicious, so we said “That’s our very unruly and ungrateful teenage kid, why?” We then had to wake her up, she confirmed her identity, and we rolled on.
These FAs are under-trained for this stuff and have racist tendencies to boot.
Retell this story with a conclusion that the kid was being trafficked, and the flight crew become heroes. And, that’s the problem. Poorly/minimally trained staff can easily get it in their mind that these actions are heroic while unfolding. It reminds me a lot of people “finding” all sorts of evil by inventing fake etymologyies of common phrases (e.g., rule of thumb is about spousal abuse).
Why are some of you making this out as a leftist thing? See something say something is from the right! And the pedo witch hunt is likewise from the right. This is no surprise, the most aggressive hunters of a “sin” all too often turn out to be covering up the fact that the label fits them. (Quotes on “sin” because this includes things like homosexuality.) The left will bring down the hammer on those where there is actual evidence, they don’t go looking in every bush for them.
If you see actual wrongs, by all means say something. But the average person is not going to be in a position to hunt for wrongs. The false positive rate is going to be approximately 100%. And if you stumble on something questionable at most report exactly what you saw, don’t elaborate. The gas company didn’t mind the day I called in because one day I found myself looking at an underground gas pipe that was neither underground nor in decent shape. (Actual problem: they failed to remove all the warning signs along an abandoned line.)
@Loren — Mhm. “See something say something” isn’t partisan, necessarily, unless someone is using it purposely to attack others with false accusations. We got “See something say something” all over NYC, posters, announcements on the subway, via NYPD, etc. Likewise, pedophilia isn’t partisan; at best, it’s a disturbing mental disorder, and if acted upon, a very serious crime. Apparently, the super rich, regardless of affiliations, seem to think they can get away with it. Time to hold them all accountable, regardless of background or wealth. (And, good call, better safe than sorry on a possible gas leak.)
@Thing 1 — But, I thought you were a Dr. Seuss character (white skin, blue hair, red jumpsuit.)
In all seriousness, I wish everyone would just treat each other better than all this. I tend to think that the fish rots at the head, and we’ve elevated the worst examples to the ‘front page.’ Ideally, we learn from this chaotic era and correct course, soon. Still, even today, in most situations, most people are decent to one another. Many of us travel frequently and rarely do any of us actually experience firsthand any of the typical ‘rage-posts’ that Gary and other blogs seem to love to highlight.