A California woman who last year repeatedly punched a Southwest Airlines flight attendant, bleeding her face and breaking three teeth, was sentenced Friday to 15 months in federal prison, they said. the prosecutors.
The woman, Vyvianna M. Quinonez, 29, of Sacramento, will also have to pay about $ 26,000 in restitution and a $ 7,500 fine, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California. A video of the attack, which took place in May 2021, was widely seen on social media.
U.S. District Court Judge Todd W. Robinson also ordered that Ms. Quinonez be placed on probation for three years after completing her sentence, during which time she will be banned from flying on any commercial aircraft.
The assault took place amid a wave of rebellious and violent behavior by passengers who pushed, beat and shouted at flight attendants. A few days after the attack, two major airlines, American and Southwest, postponed plans to start serving alcohol again on flights, in an effort to stop the behavior. Both airlines have resumed alcohol sales.
“Aircraft violence is endangering the lives of everyone on board,” Randy Grossman, a U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California, said in a statement Friday. “Attacks on flight crew members, who perform vital tasks to ensure the safety of passengers, will not be tolerated.”
A lawyer for Ms. Quinónez, who pleaded guilty in December in connection with the assault, could not be contacted immediately to comment Friday night.
In a letter filed in court on May 20, Ms. Quinónez apologized for assaulting the flight attendant. She said she had been depressed and humiliated because of the negative attention. The experience, he said, “changed me profoundly.”
On May 23, 2021, near the end of a flight from Sacramento to San Diego, a flight attendant asked Ms. Quinonez to fasten her seat belt, place her table in the tray, and that he “wore the mask properly,” prosecutors said.
Ms. Quinónez used her phone to film the flight attendant and pushed the woman, prosecutors said. The attack intensified from there, as captured by another passenger on video.
According to the video, Ms. Quinónez, who was sitting in a hallway seat, got up and slapped the manager in the face several times. He also grabbed her hair before the woman could go back up the hallway. Several passengers grabbed Ms. Quinónez’s clothes to try to stop her.
Prosecutors said the flight attendant, who was not listed in court documents, was taken to a hospital with injuries that included a swollen eye, a bruised arm and a cut under the eye that had to be sewn. They said he also had three chipped teeth, two of which had to be replaced by crowns.
In a letter dated May 18 to Judge Robinson, a representative from the Southwest said the company wanted the ruling to serve as a deterrent to rebellious and violent behavior. The letter said the company’s executive team had heard “countless flight attendants” who felt attacked during a pandemic that pushed fears of travel to an all-time high.
“What happened on Flight 700 was absolutely horrible,” wrote Southwest Vice President Sonya Lacore. “In my more than 20-year career in the Southwest, I’ve never seen such an inexcusable and violent assault on a passenger flight attendant. Even worse, the incident was captured on video and aired on of TV and Media Channels “.
“The video of the assault still hurts me,” he added.