Authorities have identified and charged the woman said to have disrupted an American Airlines flight on Monday, causing the plane to make an emergency landing in Indianapolis.
Chicagoan Daniela Velez-Reyes, 25, now faces several charges for allegedly kissing and then punching a flight attendant in the face during the Monday flight.
Witnesses say that the woman was acting erratically during the whole flight, pacing the aisles, talking and yelling loudly, and abusing other passengers both physically and verbally.
“You could hear someone screaming expletives in the back repeatedly,” passenger Jim Saviano said.
Saviano also noted that when a flight attendant tried to calm the woman, she was attacked.
“She was trying to talk the girl down,” Saviano told Chicago’s ABC affiliate. “She seemed really calm. She was talking about her boyfriend. And then, all of a sudden, she grabbed [the flight attendant] by the face, kissed her and then punched her in the face.”
Not long after that, reports say, the pilot of the craft asked passengers to help them subdue the woman and then told everyone that he was requesting a diversion to Indianapolis.
The woman’s actions caused American Airlines Flight 1284 from Miami to Chicago to divert to Indianapolis for police to board and cart the woman off to jail.
Another American Airlines passenger, Darnell Wilson, described the scene when police arrived. “She was on the ground. She wouldn’t stand up. She kept hollering that she was going to mess herself, like she was cursing people out. It was really absurd.”
Video made by a passenger shows the woman being led off the plane by Indy police, one of whom the woman reportedly kicked.
The Indianapolis Star reported that there were at least two victims accosted by the woman. A 36-year-old woman and a 52-year-old man. The woman suffered a minor injury while the man had no real injuries.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston, or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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