The 16-year-old girl was drifting to sleep on her Alaska Airlines flight from Portland, Ore., to Anchorage on Tuesday when she felt a hand that wasn’t hers grab onto her thigh.
She pushed it away, according to a police report obtained by the Alaska Dispatch News, thinking the unsolicited touch might have been a mistake. Then it happened again, and suddenly, the girl told authorities, the man sitting beside her was kissing her on the mouth. He used his tongue.
The girl pushed him away, the Dispatch News reported, and tried to decline his advances. But the man grabbed at her thigh about five times, she told police.
Eventually, another man in their row intervened, flagging down a flight attendant when the girl said she did not know the man who was groping her. The pilot was notified, reported the Dispatch News, and the flight diverted to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
The man, identified by police as 23-year-old Jesse Salas, was separated from the girl until the flight could land, reported the Dispatch News.
The teen, who has not been identified by authorities, told police she felt violated and disgusted in part because Salas smelled and tasted of “stale beer,” according to a police report.
Salas, of Redondo Beach, Calif., was arrested on a charge of fourth-degree assault, records show, and booked into King County Jail on $1,000 bail. He was released on bond early Wednesday.
It’s the second airplane groping incident in a week, raising questions among parents about how to keep their unaccompanied children safe from predators in the air.