This Time It’s Evidence They Don’t Want the Jury to See or Hear or Talk about!
Do you remember Part 1 of the story “What Is SWAPA Hiding?” I had asked why the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association “SWAPA” wanted sanctions filed against Christine Janning kept from public view. It was a rhetorical question because we all could surmise. SWAPA lost that fight and the filing ultimately became public.
Now Southwest and SWAPA have filed more than 1,000 additional pages, including motions requesting the judge to exclude evidence, testimony, and arguments from trial—to prevent the jury from seeing them. How would they get away with their actions if the jury knew the truth? They wouldn’t.
Among that evidence SWAPA wants excluded is Haak’s interactions involving his alleged victims, interactions with SWAPA Professional Standards and the infamous “Charm School” for wayward boys, and all communications between Michael Haak and SWAPA members. Court filings allege that long before Janning ever stepped into a cockpit with Haak, SWAPA knew of serious sexual misconduct allegations involving three female flight attendants and a male first officer—and later kept those reports from Janning, the FBI, and the DOJ.
The contradiction that should concern every SWAPA member is they want to financially punish Janning for pursuing claims they call frivolous, while simultaneously requesting the court to exclude significant categories of evidence that would prove Janning’s claims.
Logic strikes again. If her claims are so baseless that she deserves sanctions for bringing them forward, why is SWAPA fighting so hard to keep this evidence from the jury?
Don’t Let SWAPA Silence Christine — Support Her Fight for Transparency
What message does this send to the next aviation employee deciding whether to report misconduct or stay silent? Janning has made every court filing public and is not asking the court to keep evidence from the jury. A GoFundMe has been established to help Christine face the threat of financial punishment by her union for speaking up—and ensure that financial pressure does not succeed in silencing her. Support Christine’s fight here.
And perhaps that is the most disturbing part. SWAPA is Christine Janning’s union—the organization entrusted to represent and support her. Yet more than six years after Flight 6607, SWAPA appears to be protecting Michael Haak, the 27-year Southwest Airlines captain who pleaded guilty to lewd and obscene conduct after exposing himself and watching pornography in the cockpit, not Janning.
Now Janning faces financial punishment while SWAPA fights to keep evidence involving Haak and their communications with him, a known sexual predator, hidden from the jury. This appears to be a pattern. They kept it hidden from the pilots who would be at risk in the flight deck with him. They kept it hidden from the pilots and flight attendants who may have been on a layover with him.
Do you believe SWAPA had a duty of care to warn others of his behavior?
