An old timer accused of feeling up all four stewardesses on a Ho Chi Minh City-bound flight has been fined for “breaching in-flight rules,” as there was not enough evidence for his reported harassment, aviation authorities said Tuesday.

P.T.V., 69, was subject to a VND4 million (US$179) civil penalty by the Southern Airports Corporation for scolding four air hostesses on the Vietjet flight VJ 271 departing from Vinh, the capital of the north-central province of Nghe An, on Sunday.

According to an early report by the cabin crew, the Nghe An-born passenger had signaled to a stewardess that he wanted to use the restroom, but was told to wait because both of the lavatories were occupied.

V. then shouted at the flight attendant before allegedly using his mobile phone to hit her in the buttocks.

The man then purportedly used the handset to hit the three other stewardesses, including one foreigner, in their sensitive body parts.

However, the official case record, used to levy the fine on him, says that V. wanted to use the front restroom but was required to use the rear one, as the flight attendants were selling souvenir items along the aisle.

The passenger shouted at the stewardesses, “You ill-bred women, won’t you get out of my way? Weren’t you educated by your parents?”, according to the report.

The man moved on to use his mobile phone to hit the flight attendant “near her hip.”

Upon arrival at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City, V. denied his disruptive behavior on the flight and left without signing the case report.

A Vietjet representative then said the airline had failed to find enough eyewitnesses to confirm the passenger's harassment of the flight attendants, so the final record is much different from the initial document.

The man is purportedly the director of a construction company in central Vietnam, but the case record does not confirm this.