Woman makes a very disturbing discovery after sticky beaking at text messages of a fellow passenger on a flight to California.

San Jose police say the woman allegedly saw a man texting about sexually molesting children.

“The conversations were very particular in regards to sex acts that were to be performed on young children,” a San Jose police spokesman said, news.com.au reports.

The female passenger photographed the man’s texts and informed the cabin crew.

The man, identified by police as Michael Kellar, 56, of Tacoma, in Washington, was using a large smartphone with enlarged text, making it easier for her to read his messages and take photographs of them.

Mr Kellar told police that the texts were just a sexual fantasy game.

CNN reports, detectives later inspected the man’s phone and found he had allegedly texted a woman, Gail Burnworth, 50, in Washington.

Seattle police said the messaged contained “information that the woman had access to the children either as a caregiver or a babysitter”.

A five-year-old and seven-year-old were found in the woman’s care.

The New York Times reports, Mr Kellar has been booked with two counts of attempted child molestation and two counts of solicitation of a sex crime.

Ms Burnworth was arrested, not formally charged, and then released. She was arrested again on Friday for conspiracy to produce child pornography.

San Jose Police Sgt. Brian Spears told CNN that the actions of the female passenger were incredible heroic.

“I’d like to highlight that if it wasn’t for this particular passenger taking action to alert the staff and alert the police, this catastrophic event would have been horrific,” he said.

The woman is a preschool teacher.  Police said, “We’re very grateful that she was on that plane,” Captain Edwards said.

“I think the big message and the big takeaway on this is, for all of us, is to pay attention to what’s going on around you,” he said. “You never know how important it could be.”

“She’s definitely a hero in our eyes,” a detective said. https://t.co/35lbNkCBNm

— NYT National News (@NYTNational) August 6, 2017

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