According to reports, as the plane began its descent, a flight attendant asked a 29-year-old woman to put on her seatbelt, stow her tray table, and put on her face mask. The incident in question involves a May 23, 2021, Southwest Airlines flight from Sacramento (SMF) to San Diego (SAN). Mainz, the Southwest spokesperson, confirmed to The Bee in May that Quinonez has been permanently banned from the airline. The passenger who punched a Southwest flight attendant. Interfering with a flight attendant carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. Quinonez is due for an initial court appearance Sept. Lyn Montgomery, president of TWU Local 556 representing Southwest flight attendants, mentioned the incident as being just one of the latest and most dramatic in a wave of “passenger misconduct” incidents she said was becoming “intolerable.” Montgomery in her letter to CEO Gary Kelly said there had been nearly 500 such incidents on Southwest flights between April 8 and May 15 of this year. Manner said she shared her video with law enforcement.Ī union president wrote in a letter to the Southwest Airlines CEO that the attendant suffered facial injuries and lost two teeth. Her video shows Quinonez wearing a mask, but the mask was not covering her nose. Manner also disputed the airline’s claim that the incident did not involve masks. It was a very shaking experience,” Michelle Manner, the witness who shared the video with The Bee, said at the time. This week’s court filing says the flight attendant needed four stitches under her left eye, had bruising on her arm and had three teeth chipped, two of which has to be replaced by crowns. Blood could be seen streaming down the attendant’s cheek in the video. It showed the woman, identified by police as Quinonez shortly after the incident, throwing a punch that hit the flight attendant in the cheek, followed by several more punches that did not land. She told law enforcement she acted in self-defense, court documents say.Ī passenger seated a few rows in front of Quinonez shared a video of the incident with The Sacramento Bee. Port of San Diego Harbor Police officers escorted Quinonez off the plane. The altercation happened shortly after the plane landed in San Diego. However, the federal charging document says that while the attendant started by instructing Quinonez to “fasten her seat belt and stow her tray table,” it also says the attendant “instructed Quinonez to wear her facemask properly.” Masks have been federally required on airplanes during the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc.Chris Mainz, a Southwest Airlines spokesman, in emailed responses to The Sacramento Bee days after the incident said the altercation was “not mask-related.” “She is recovering, I’m giving her privacy to recover and get over the shock of this to occur,” Montgomery told CBS8. Lyn Montgomery, president of the Southwest flight attendants union, said the employee is recovering. The flight attendant, who has not been identified, was treated at a hospital and released. Reached for comment, she said she acted in self-defense and would not speak further about the incident without an attorney present, the outlet reported. She was released from jail on $35,000 bond, CBS8 reported. Quinonez was arrested on suspicion of battery causing serious injury. Very rude, about the way she handled anything,” she added of the flight attendant.Ī Southwest spokesman, however, said the incident occurred when the passenger “repeatedly ignored standard inflight instructions and became verbally and physically abusive upon landing.” Get your hands off of me,’” Manner told the news station.ģ Michelle Manner’s video shows passenger Vyvianna Quinonez punch a Southwest flight attendant. “Vyvianna had said to her three times, that we could hear, ‘Get off of me. The altercation then escalated from there. “And she should’ve just stayed there in her back cubby, but she came back out screaming at them again.” In the first altercation, she had said that she was going to call the captain,” said passenger Michelle Manner, who was sitting two rows in front of them. It began when the unnamed flight attendant confronted passenger Vyvianna Quinonez, 28, and her other family members about putting their face masks back on, news station Fox40 reported. The shocking incident unfolded just after a flight from Sacramento landed in San Diego on Sunday. The Southwest Airlines flight attendant who got two of her teeth knocked out by a passenger was “very unprofessional” and provoked the wild altercation, another flier said. Wild video shows airline passenger yelling about being ‘human trafficked’Īirline complaints nearly double from a year ago - and feds say there’s too many to process Southwest passenger arrested after escaping through emergency hatch, climbing onto plane’s wings Southwest Airlines is praised for ‘customers of size’ policy that allows overweight flyers to purchase one seat and get another complimentary
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |