A US woman who shared a video from her American Airlines flight of a passenger repeatedly punching her aeroplane seat wants to press assault charges against the man.
Twitter user Wendi Williams posted the footage to social media in January with the caption, "He was angry that I reclined my seat and punched it about 9 times - HARD, at which point I began videoing him, and he resigned to this behaviour."
Williams said the worst of the "assault" happened off-camera.
"Everybody thinks that when I say he was punching me that's what was in the video. He was punching my seat, like I was falling forward hard," Williams told TMZ.
She thought videoing him would stop him.
"The video...is an irritation and ridiculous, but what he was doing before… that was assault," she said.
The Virginia woman said she suffers from a medical condition and the man's punching made her flight more uncomfortable than it needed to be.
"I'm in pain," she tweeted. "I am grateful for the limited movement I still have and shouldn't have had to endure repeated blows".
When Williams complained to an air hostess, she was reportedly "reprimanded" while her offender was offered a drink of rum.
"She came over huffy and she came over and I said, 'he's hitting me repeatedly like a child' and she was like, 'oh it is tight back here'."
As Williams believes the incident is too insignificant for the FBI, she wants to "know who he is".
She also wants the flight attendant Loretta "fired".
Williams experience has divided social media users with many taking the man's side.
"It was a plane, not your private lounge. You don't recline so far you're on someone else's face. Which is why the flight attendant reprimanded you. Get a clue lady," said one person.
"It's ridiculous for ppl to say you shouldn't recline your seat. It's an option for a reason. You're fully within your right. If he needs more room, he should have gotten a seat that accommodated that. Why should you be inconvenienced? You paid for your seat," said another.
One person wrote, "SO WHAT? Might doesn’t make right. She thought only of herself, even knowing that the man couldn’t even eat his food with her seat reclined. And now she apparently wants to get rich off something she could’ve entirely prevented. Ridiculous."
