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Man accused of sexually assaulting sleeping woman on a US flight while his wife sat nearby

When we wake up from a mid-flight nap, we expect to stir to the sound of a movie's end credits, the snore of our neighbour or the smell of an airline meal, NOT the hands of some creeper down our pants.

When we wake up from a mid-flight nap, we expect to stir to the sound of a movie’s end credits, the snore of our neighbour or the smell of an airline meal, NOT the hands of some creeper down our pants.

That’s the traumatic incident a woman says she experienced while flying on a domestic US flight, The Washington Post reported.

According to reports, the 22-year-old fell asleep in her window seat on a Spirit Airlines service from Las Vegas to Detroit and woke a few hours later to find her pants and shirt unbuttoned, and the hand of the man sitting beside her in her pants.

Image: Sofia Sforza/Unsplash

Image: Sofia Sforza/Unsplash

Federal Prosecutor, Amanda Jawad, said the 34-year-old man was seated between the young woman and his wife, and stopped when the victim woke up.

Jawad continued, saying that the woman went to the back of the plane where she told two flight attendants about the incident. Cabin crew moved the woman to a different seat and reported the incident to local authorities.

Spirit Airlines 2

The man was arrested upon touch down in Michigan and is being charged with aggravated sexual abuse.

Last year in India, Air India attempted to combat an increase in inflight sexual harassment with the introduction of segregated seating, which would allow women travelling solo to sit among their own gender. Click here to read more about it.

READ: Female-only rows, is this the solution to combating inflight sexual assault?

READ: Booze-related air rage on the rise

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