A woman claims a man assaulted her while she was sleeping on a Southwest Airlines flight. However, in trying to analyze the claims, I’m failing to see a clear motive.
Tray Table Violence On Southwest Airlines
Saarah Sareshwala was flying from Orlando (MCO) to Phoenix (PHX) on Southwest Airlines flight 1630 on Saturday. During the flight, she decided to take a nap, using the tray table to rest her head. At one point, she was awakened by a violent impact. She was not sure what caused it (even thinking she may have inadvertently banged her head on the seat in front of her) and rose to use the lavatory to check on any potential injuries.
While she was up, Sareshwala’s seatmates allegedly confronted the man for his actions. They were awake and witnessed him “deliberately” try to harm Sareshwala. He was indignant and cursed them out, also purportedly claiming, “The f*cking b*tch got what was coming for her.”
Ok, stop. Here’s my question. What could she have done that made the man so angry? Was she banging her pushing her head against his seat? By leaning on the tray table, did she rock his seat? Was she snoring?
We do have this clue:
Here’s one of the pages that Gabi [last name redacted], one of Saarah’s seatmates, wrote down: pic.twitter.com/oBfsCkQlOZ
— Faraaz Sareshwala (@fsareshwala) September 25, 2022
Perhaps she had drifted off to sleep and was suddenly awakened and hit the seat hard in front of her. Then perhaps he responded in anger by reclining on her.
If the man did what is claimed he did, there is no excuse or justification no matter what led to it, but it would certainly help to understand whether something triggered this man and if so, what.
Here’s why. I get annoyed myself when an idiot in front of me reclines quickly and without warning. I know not to position my laptop too far up the tray table for fear of damaging it if the person in front of me quickly reclines. It also drives me crazy when the person in front of me thinks they can extract more recline by leaning back against the seat with all their weight, causing it to rock back and forth. In fact, if this happens too often I’ll push back on the seat. Sometimes children need to be treated like children, though violence is never acceptable.
But this is a totally different situation. Here, it is alleged that Sareshwala was not leaning back on someone, but simply using her tray table to rest her head. It still strikes me as odd that the man in front would get so angry.
Flight attendants were notified and moved the women. Phoenix police met the aircraft upon arrival, took a report, but made no arrests. The matter has been referred to the FBI.
You can read the full Twitter account of the incident here.
CONCLUSION
I find this whole incident strange, but it is a reminder of how tempers flare when people are confined to close quarters on an airplane. If the man is guilty as charged, I hope Sareshwala will find him and press charges. But this story presents another cautionary tale about using your tray table for sleeping.
What are your thoughts on this alleged incident of tray table violence on Southwest Airlines?
(H/T: View From The Wing)
This is just a guess, but I’d say a likely situation was while she was sleeping, she moved now and then, which pulled the man’s seat back each time. If you’re sensitive to that kind of thing, it can be annoying. No excuse for violence, though.
How about writing about C1 turning off their transfer portal. It is NOT under maintenance as they suggest on the site, they have turned it off with no planned date to turn it back on.
This is some underhanded crap if true and there’s no way I’ll re-up my card come renew time.
It is amazing to me that not a single blogger, that are happy to accept referral fees, have written about this. It’s been off for 4+ days.
I’ve reached out to my contact and asked for an update.
Thank you
No specific reason but in my gut I always thought that the Capital One card was too good to be true. Just my impression of it. I never got the card and have no plans to get it.
If you lack consideration and push, shove, shake, kick, pull, etc the seat in front of you then expect a similar reaction that lacks consideration. Guy sounds like an a$$hat but there’s a 0% chance this happens if the woman had any shade of awareness.
How about the racist tirade he went on? Kinda clears up the issue
Do just a little research, maybe?
There was none.
“ The matter has been referred to the FBI” Seriously? And I thought FBI had more important things to do.
“Assaulting” by reclining a seat.
How silly.
Q. (from article) “What could she have done that made the man so angry? ”
A. (from article).”While she was up, Sareshwala’s seatmates allegedly confronted the man for his actions.”
Perhaps the man was angry at being falsely accused when he felt he was the victim from the woman rocking his seat?
The proper response to having your seat jostled a little is not to slam it back into someone’s head, especially hard enough that other people noticed and felt it appropriate to intervene. Since the flight originated in Florida it’s probably safe to assume the man was indulging in some drugs before the flight.
Or he was just from Florida.
Except the anger is what made him slam his seat into her head. Not their accusations.
In any encounter with the cops in the US it is a good day if no one gets shot and killed. If US soldiers behave abroad the way cops behave in the US, i can guarantee there are many war crimes unreported. If that is not the case, then there is no reason the cops can’t behave more like the US soldiers.
So which one is being out of line? I will just point out the awesome power of unions here. And how capitalism and its bribed up servants in congress has allowed unions to be formed in nonprofits centers of the economy but gets busy breaking then up everywhere in the economy that is a profit center.
Did Ben take down his article on this incident? I could have sworn I read one. Who knows. People are jerks.
People around the world are on their last nerve. Either we need to have psychiatric professionals on every flight to identify and de-escalate situations or we need VISIBLE air marshals on every flight to enforce compliance.
The criminals in this case more likely are the women who more likely than not made a false accusation of a crime against the man. In no way can a person reclining be considered battery when it is your right as a paying passenger to recline at your discretion outside of takeoff and landing. What likely happened is the woman pushed on the man’s seat for a prolonged period in a very disruptive manner and he reclined back. Reclining is not a crime. The man was absolutely doing the right thing by calling these women Bs as by definition they were. Falsely accusing people of a crime, sexism, or racism makes you a B. Because the person was a woman and Indian or whatever she is automatically believed and because it is a White Man he is automatically considered the culprit. This is despite the fact that Whites commit the lowest amount of violent crime per capita in the world and every other race commit more crime per capita.
Aw, Amy and her racist comments…how we missed them.
Nowhere in the article is the man’s race stated. You are making assumptions. And we know why they are called ass-umptions.
The idiot posted his photo on social media and I hate to break it to you but Amy is correct. I hope the man sues for slander. So sick of this I’m a victim BS. If this was real, why take it to social media and not just law enforcement? Asault, I’m embarrassed for you.
“intent” is not necessarily an element of assault. There doesn’t have to be justification.
“but it would certainly help to understand whether something triggered this man”
Sounds like a case of victim blaming and trying to find some way to excuse his reaction…
she’s not a victim.