Flight Risk (Season 19, Episode 11)
Premise: A co-pilot who seized her plane’s cockpit says the captain raped her, and SVU uncovers an airline that bought women’s silence.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 19, Episode 11
- Starring
- Lt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), Deputy Chief William Dodds (Peter Gallagher), ADA Rafael Barba (Raúl Esparza), Defense Attorney Roger Kressler (Ned Eisenberg)
- Guest stars
- Yasmine Al Massri as First Officer Tara Sidnana, Martin Donovan as Capt. Logan Carter, Anastasia Barzee as Jeanne Howell, Reg Rogers as Carl Fleming, Roxanna Hope Radja as Dr. Alexis Sidnana
- Ripped from the headlines
- Inspired by the sexual abuse allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein.
- Director
- Michael Pressman
- Writers
- Story: Brianna Yellen & Robert Brooks Cohen & Céline C. Robinson & Elizabeth Rinehart; Written by: Julie Martin & Allison Intrieri
Summary
“Flight Risk” finds Benson ready to return after three weeks at home with Noah; Deputy Chief Dodds recalls drinking every night for months after his son died. On Optimum Air Flight 42 to Atlanta, First Officer Tara Sidnana locks Capt. Logan Carter out of the cockpit and swings the plane back toward JFK until he gets in and retakes the controls. The press brands her a terrorist, but her union rep calls SVU: Tara says Carter raped her at a crew hotel six months earlier, and that the airline promised to speed her promotion and never pair them again if she kept quiet. That morning it put her back in his cockpit.
Carter, the airline’s chief airman, has a spotless record. Founder Carl Fleming defends selling flights with sex appeal, and his HR chief says Tara drank, botched preflight checks and was sent back for retraining. Her sister, Dr. Alexis Sidnana, recalls Tara arriving unannounced, sleeping 18 hours and blaming bruises on her neck and wrists on a mugging; Alexis photographed them. Dodds presses Benson to hand the case to federal authorities; she refuses. Tara describes months of crude remarks before Carter forced his way into her room, choked her and raped her. On a controlled call he tells her she got what she was asking for, and the squad arrests him at JFK before a morning TV appearance. With lawyer Roger Kressler at his side, he calls the encounter consensual.
At trial Tara, who has pleaded guilty to federal charges, faces two years in prison and has lost her license, says sitting beside Carter put her back in that hotel room. Benson then finds Jeanne Howell, the only woman Optimum ever made captain, who left soon after. Howell admits Carter raped her too and that the promotion was the price of her silence; she kept photos and emails, and Carter pleads guilty to two counts of second-degree rape for ten years. Barba then takes the whole company before a grand jury. Howell and a flight attendant describe harassment and retaliation, and Fleming’s assistant, Ellen Gray, produces a memo he wrote calling women unfit to captain planes.
Spoiler, the ending: Arguing that the airline robbed its female employees of their dignity, Barba wins an indictment charging Optimum Air and its staff with grand larceny. He expects to lose a motion to dismiss and rates his appeal an underdog, but the company’s stock drops 30 percent amid talk of bankruptcy. Fin then confronts Dodds over rumors that he is interviewing Benson’s possible replacements, shows him a memo without saying where he got it, and adds that he kept a copy.
Why it stands out
- Benson returns to the squad after three weeks off following Sheila Porter’s kidnapping of Noah.
- Martin Donovan guest stars as Capt. Logan Carter and Yasmine Al Massri as First Officer Tara Sidnana.
- Barba seeks a grand larceny indictment against an entire airline, treating the dignity it took from its female employees as stolen property.