Video shows passenger hitting Southwest Airlines flight attendant who lost teeth in assault
Video footage has been released showing the assault on a Southwest Airlines flight attendant last weekend by an unruly passenger, who left the attendant bloodied and reportedly missing two teeth.
The witness who took the video says both the passenger and the flight attendant deserve blame for the altercation.
What are the details?
The incident occurred Sunday morning after a flight from Sacramento, California, landed in San Diego.
It was first reported by a Transport Workers Union of America local president who raised it to Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly in a plea for better safety for airline employees amid a significant spike in passenger incidents over the past year — the vast majority of which the FAA has attributed to non-compliance with mask policies.
A spokesperson for Southwest confirmed the altercation, saying in a statement to ABC News Tuesday that "the passenger repeatedly ignored standard inflight instructions and became verbally and physically abusive upon landing."
Witness Michelle Manner pulled out her cell phone to record after the flight attendant, who has not been named, battled back and forth verbally with a row of passengers.
Manner says the whole thing stemmed from one passenger not properly wearing their mask, and that both the flight attendant and the passenger who hit her deserve blame for escalating the situation.
"Both of them, in my opinion, were wrong and it could have totally been avoided," Manner told KFMB-TV, with whom she shared the footage. "
Manner says she was only able to capture the last part of the argument between the attendant and the passengers, and claims a verbal altercation between the parties began roughly five minutes prior when the attendant pressed a passenger sitting in a window seat to pull her mask over her nose.
According to Manner, the attendant then left to report the passenger to the captain of the aircraft before returning to the confrontation.
"The frustration from the first altercation was still brewing - in all of them - including the flight attendant, no doubt, and so it just escalated very, very fast," Manner recalled. "I heard the passenger [sitting by the aisle] say three times something to the effect of, 'Get off of me. Don't lean on me.'"
Manner went on to say, "The passenger was incorrect by hitting her, but she was also, in my opinion, provoked."
Anything else?
Fox News reported that 28-year-old passenger Vyvianna Quinonez was arrested following the incident for battery causing serious bodily injury according to the San Diego Harbor Police Department.
Southwest has permanently banned Quinonez from flying with the airline, USA Today reported.