A 51-year-old man is facing sexual abuse charges for allegedly touching a minor on an airplane.
The incident occurred Friday of last week on a Delta Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Orlando.
Officials say a criminal complaint was filed in the Middle District of Florida claiming that Brian Patrick Durning, of Altadena, California groped the victim while she was seated next to him on the plane.
According to the report, the victim said to be between 12 and 16 was seated in the middle seat while Durning was seated in the isle seat to her left.
Due to a seating issue, the girl’s mother was seated two rows ahead of her.
During the flight, Durning reportedly began “to cough and sneeze” on the victim.
He then touched her “hair and neck” before moving on to more inmate parts of her body.
At one point, Durning “reached over to touch her inner left thigh, moving her thigh toward him,” and then touched the victim “over her clothing.”
A woman seated by the window looked over and noticed Durning quickly pull his hand away from the victim.
She spoke to him, telling him that he was “scaring her.”
The woman then asked the victim, who was “shaking” if she wanted to switch seats with her.
The victim’s mother then looked back to see what was going on and that’s when her daughter mouthed to her “He touched me.”
The victim’s mother then went to confront Durning.
When she approached Durning, she noticed that his pants were “unzipped.”
A flight attendant then became involved and moved Durning to another seat for the remainder of the flight.
When the flight landed, Durning was taken off of the flight by the police.

Durning told investigators that he had one or two beers before the flight and wine while on the flight. He also reported that he took an Ambien.
“Durning stated that he fell asleep. He stated that the next thing he remembered was someone waking him up and asking him to switch seats,” the affidavit reads.
He was arrested and charged with abusive sexual contact of a minor and committing a crime on an aircraft in flight.
In addition to the charges, he must turn over his passport and has been banned from all Delta flights.
“We have zero-tolerance for this type of alleged behavior on our flights and at our airports and the charged individual is no longer welcome to fly Delta,” Delta said.