OMAAT reader Ivan shared a bizarre experience with me, whereby he was sexually assaulted in a domestic Turkish Airlines lounge by a security guard… with multiple interactions! He asks for my take on this, and I find this to be so shocking that I’m not even sure what to think.
When I exited the doors to discuss the issue with the agent, I realized that the agent was not there. There were two security agents nearby, and the male security agent must have seen a confused look on my face, and must have thought I needed to use the the bathroom. I told him three times that I did not need to use the restroom, I need to talk to an agent.
At this point he stood up and walked over to me. When he got near me he asked what I needed. At this point he got very close to me but I didn’t think much of it, as I assumed he was trying to look at my tickets. At the same time, I felt a hand or something brush against the front of my pants, and I backed up. Again, I thought this was an accident, and it wasn’t intentional. This was all happening in a wide open space that was within eye shot of the other security person, a female, if she were paying attention, so I had no reason to think it was malicious.
The next thing that happened, which I then began to question internally, was that he got closer while looking at our tickets. One hand was near the tickets in my hand, as I was explaining what was going on, and the other hand was down near my crotch, and he had a finger pressed against my private area.
I thought to myself, “ok, this is strange but I don’t want to make a scene here because I’m just trying to fly to the beach with my family and I just need this sorted out.” This entire interaction lasted about one to two minutes, and the the Turkish agent was back and we got all of our ticketing issues sorted out.
That brings us to the second interaction, which happened just shortly thereafter:
The way the lounge is set up, you have to “leave” the lounge to use the bathroom, but it’s before the business class security station ,and the bathroom is right next to the security station. The airport is very small, so security doesn’t have much to do most of the time. I walked out of the lounge and walked towards the bathroom, passing the security station in the process. As soon as I walked by the security station, I noticed the male security agent stand up and walk towards the bathroom.
At this point I thought it was weird, but it got really weird right after that. The main door to the bathroom was propped open, not too dissimilar to bathrooms all over the world. After I walked in the main door, the security guard came in after me, maybe five seconds or so later, and closed the door behind him. This bathroom was small, two urinals and two stalls. When he came in, he closed the door, and I immediately got nervous and knew I was in a bad situation.
As I was standing at the urinal attempting to do my business, I noticed him behind me checking to see if anyone was in any of the stalls. At this point I was frozen and did not know what to do. After he realized that no one was in the stalls, he goes to the urinal next to mine. The urinals have those half walls so that you can’t really see anything below the shoulder/neck of the person next to you. He puts his chin on the half wall and looks at me, down there. I did not look over at him or make any eye contact. I was thinking to myself, “how in the hell am I going to get out of this situation?”
Maybe about 20-30 seconds into this encounter another passenger walks into the bathroom, and by the time the other passenger comes around the corner, the security agent “zipped up” and was on his way over to “wash his hands.” I had an immediate wave of relief come over me, and was unbelievably happy that someone else walked in and saved me from whatever was about to happen. They had no idea. For what it’s worth, I did not use the bathroom at all. Once I realized what was going on, nothing was happening and I just stood there. In hindsight, the security agent was probably wondering what was going on since he was so into what I was doing.
Then when he returned to the lounge, here’s the conversation he had with his wife, along with the questions he asks me:
A great solo travel tip spotted this week on One Mile at a Time.
