TACOMA, Wash. — As the plane was taxiing, passenger Samira Khan instinctively reached for her handbag, only to find it missing from the seat beside her.There wasn’t any time to panic. Khan, a mother of four, is an Alaska Airlines flight attendant and knows the safety protocols for situations just like this. She scanned the seat again and found nothing, then frantically checked the overhead bin.“That’s when I noticed the flight attendant next to me give me a weird look,” said Khan in an interview with The Times. “She leans over and goes, ‘Is this yours?’ ”Khan looked at the black one-piece bodysuit that the flight attendant was holding. It was folded haphazardly and had a strange, bumpy texture.“I was like, ‘No way that’s mine,’” said Khan, who then spent the next few minutes explaining that she would never pack such an outfit, especially for a work trip.The flight attendant took the bodysuit and placed it in the galley and told Khan not to worry. A few minutes later, Khan decided to speak with the passenger seated beside her, a woman in her 50s whom she had briefly chatted with while boarding the flight.“I asked her, ‘Hey, did you see anything weird or unusual happen?’ She said, ‘As a matter of fact, I did,’” Khan recalled.The passenger told Khan that she saw a man she didn’t recognize leave his own seat and approach Khan’s row while Khan was using the lavatory. She said the man was wearing gloves and holding what appeared to be a blanket or towel. The man sat down in Khan’s seat and remained there for an unusually long time, the passenger said.“She said the man got up at one point, went to the bathroom and came back with his hands in his pockets, and then he sat down in the seat again,” Khan said. “The woman thought it was really weird.”The woman told Khan that the man eventually got up, left the bodysuit on the seat and quickly walked off the plane. Khan was furious. She and the woman reported the incident to the flight crew, who then contacted the police after the plane landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.Port of Seattle police are investigating, but have not released any information about a suspect. A spokesperson for the Port declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation.Khan said she also filed a police report and was later contacted by a detective, who told her that there were no apparent signs of theft from her handbag. She said police retrieved the bodysuit and told her they would be testing it for fingerprints and DNA.Khan said airline employees later told her that the man who left the bodysuit behind appeared to be intoxicated and had exceptionally dilated pupils. She said she believes the man may have taken drugs and planted the bodysuit on her seat — perhaps to hide something inside it.“I had a very bad feeling about him from the moment I saw him,” Khan said. “I don’t know if it was the drugs or if there was something else going on, but something just wasn’t right.”The incident has rattled Khan, who said she felt violated by the strange man’s actions and anxious about what may have happened if he had put something dangerous inside the bodysuit.“I have a 10-year-old daughter and I just keep thinking about how lucky I am that it wasn’t her in that seat,” Khan said. “It could have been so much worse.”Khan said she was most upset by the apparent lack of response from Alaska Airlines, where she has worked for the past five years. She said she was initially told by supervisors that the airline would be reviewing security camera footage of the incident and getting back to her. But more than a week later, she said, the airline has yet to contact her with any updates.“I’ve been really disappointed in Alaska’s response,” Khan said. “I feel like they’re just trying to sweep this under the rug.”In a statement to The Times, Alaska Airlines said the safety and well-being of its passengers and employees is its top priority. The airline said it is cooperating with law enforcement and conducting its own internal investigation.“We are working diligently to gather information and review security camera footage,” the statement said. “We will continue to provide updates to our employees and guests as appropriate.”.
Money to Burn: Dilated Pupils, Shocking Finds in a Black One-Piece Bodysuit, Flight Attendants Her Baby Bump
