Woman whose reclined airplane seat was punched tells full story after incident goes viral
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The woman whose reclined airplane seat was repeatedly punched by an angry airline passenger appeared on “Fox & Friends” Monday to explain exactly what happened during the now-viral encounter.
“The hits just kept on coming literally and figuratively. From the guy then the flight attendant,” Wendi Williams said on Monday.
Williams, who was on an American Airlines flight from New Orleans to Charlotte, is now considering pressing charges against the unidentified passenger, saying that she has been speaking with an aviation attorney.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Williams, who posted the now-viral video of the tense encounter, said the man should be charged with assault. What’s more, she said the attendant on the American Eagle flight (a subsidiary of American Airlines) should be fired.
AMERICAN AIRLINES PASSENGER CLAIMS MAN ASSAULTED HER BY CONTINUOUSLY PUNCHING SEAT
Williams told TMZ on Friday that she wants to know who the man is, adding that she “was assaulted on this plane.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“I wish he would come out of the woodwork,” she said on Monday.
Williams explained that she started taking the video because the passenger was punching her seat and flight attendants weren’t doing anything to stop it.
“I was leaving a teacher's conference and we got onto the plane and the man behind me, as soon as we got in the air, I reclined and he asked me if … I would put my seat back up while he ate, which I did,” Williams said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“About 10 minutes later, he was done and I put my seat back down at which point he started full-on punching the back of my seat really hard that I was flying forward.”
She said at that point she “was trying to get the flight attendant's attention and she wasn't responding.”
“So all I could think to do was to video the guy and maybe I thought that would stop him,” Williams said, adding that she wasn’t sure why he had started punching her seat when she did “exactly” what he had asked.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“I thought, I'm just going to keep videoing this guy because nobody else was doing anything,” Williams said. “And I thought he would completely stop but he continued throughout.”
She noted that the “poking” seen in the video “was nothing compared to what he was doing prior.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Williams also aimed her frustration at the flight attendant on Monday, explaining that she was asked to delete the video from her cell phone.
“When she finally did come around, she had an attitude with me and said, ‘What?’ And I said, ‘The guy behind me is repeatedly hitting me’ and she went back to him, like changed personalities, and was the kindest person in the world and said, ‘Oh, are you okay? It's really tight back here. I'm sorry’ and then she said to me, ‘Delete the video’ and I thought, ‘Why would I delete the video?’” Williams said.
Williams reportedly said the flight attendant threatened to remove her from the aircraft if she didn’t delete the video recording and handed her a “Passenger Disturbance Notice” that warned of federal prosecution.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}American Airlines released a statement saying, “We are aware of a customer dispute that transpired on American Eagle flight 4392, operated by Republic Airways on January 31st. The safety and comfort of our customers and team members is our top priority and our team is looking into the issue.”
Williams said she heard from American Airlines after her video went viral.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“I tried to talk to them via email and I sent them the video in its entirety and tried to let them know that this was not okay and they basically gave me that same statement like 'we try to train our employees to do X, Y and Z' and that clearly didn't happen,” Williams said.
Fox News’ Gerren Keith Gaynor contributed to this report.