A male passenger aboard a Vietnam Airlines plane has been fined for slapping a female flight attendant following his suspicion of her stealing his phone last weekend.

The Southern Airports Authority (SAA) on Thursday confirmed that it had imposed a VND15 million (US$670) fine on M.T.B. for assaulting a stewardess during his flight from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City on August 13.

The business-class passenger, 46, admitted he had hit the flight attendant’s face because he suspected her of thieving his iPhone 6 Plus and accepted the penalty.

The passenger said in a report submitted to the SAA that after waking up, he found his phone no longer lying on the folding table.

B. then dialed his number several times and the phone rang thrice before going silent, despite subsequent calls.

Thinking the stewardess had stolen his smartphone, he slapped her.

The flight attendant recounted in the report, “When the plane touched down at Tan Son Nhat International Airport [in Ho Chi Minh City], the passenger told me that he had lost his phone, which he claimed to have been on the table.

“When I cleaned and folded the table as the plane was about to land, I did not see any phone there,” she said, adding that she and her chief flight attendant then began searching for the phone for him.

“But he stopped the search and suddenly slapped my face,” the flight attendant said in the report.

The phone was eventually found 20 minutes later under his seat.

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