An economics professor from California who was arrested because a flight attendant thought she looked like a terrorist has been awarded $27.5m (£15.7m).

In a victory for critics of racial profiling, a jury in El Paso, Texas, ordered Southwest Airlines to pay damages to Samantha Carrington for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution after she was bundled off a flight and arrested because flight attendants found her appearance suspicious.

Ms Carrington, who is of Iranian origin, had been returning to Los Angeles from Houston, where her mother was being treated for cancer, in 2003 when flight attendants had her arrested during a scheduled stop in El Paso.

In court documents, three attendants accused Ms Carrington of grabbing them and of threatening to go into the cockpit unless they called the pilot. Ms Carrington maintains that she complained only about poor in-flight service. Criminal charges were never filed after an FBI officer assigned to investigate said he did not believe the flight attendants' version. Southwest denied its attendants acted improperly. But later, its president wrote to apologise for the "heinous" incident, offering tickets in compensation.

Ms Carrington said she felt vindicated by the verdict but has been unable to clear her name from terror watchlists.

Southwest said it would appeal.