Buenos Aires, Jun 29 (EFE).– Famous Argentine model Victoria Xipolitakis denied, through her attorney, any responsibility for her presence in the cabin of an Aerolineas Argentinas airliner and announced that she plans to file suit against the pilot and copilot for sexual harassment.

“(Xipolitakis) was not responsible, there were people who did not do what they should have done,” attorney Fernando Burlando said on Radio Vorterix.

Burlando said that his client “might at first appear to be at fault,” but accusing her “is looking away from those who were truly responsible,” and who, in his opinion, were “the commander and the copilot.”

After analyzing the video made by Xipolitakis, the lawyer said the model was “the victim of a situation of sexual harassment and abuse” and that she is thinking of filing suit on those grounds.

“When a woman is molested she has no direct, effective way to stop it; for example, to stop them from fondling her when they fasten her seat belt,” he said.

The airing of a video shot by Xipolitakis inside the pilot’s cabin during a flight sparked a big scandal in Argentina last Friday.

The pictures show how the pilot and copilot let her operate some of the airliner’s contols, as well as authorizing her presence in the cabin during takeoff and landing, when international air security regulations forbid the presence there of anyone but the crew.

The state company fired the pilot and copilot and is bringing a criminal case against them and against Xipolitakis, for having put the airliner’s safety at risk, a crime punishable by up to eight years behind bars.

It also banned Xipolitakis from flying on Aerolineas Argentinas for five years.

The controversial flight took off last Monday from Buenos Aires headed for the city of Rosario in the central province of Santa Fe. EFE