Saying 'Bomb' Gets Man with Tourette Syndrome Kicked Off Flight
Michael Doyle and his friend Chaz Petteway had been planning last week's trip to Puerto Rico for two years.
"It was a really big deal for us. It was going to be fun. A very fun time," said Doyle of the Revolutionary War reenactment they were planing to participate in.
But the 19-year-old was prevented from boarding his Jet Blue flight from Reagan National Airport because he unintentionally said the word "bomb" several times.
"With all the stuff in the news about the Boston bombings and stuff... I started ticking 'bomb,'" said Doyle, who suffers from Tourette Syndrome. "[W]hen I get nervous and anything on my mind will come out. And things you're not supposed to say."
Oddly enough, it wasn't the TSA that had a problem with Doyle — he passed through security without incident — but rather the Jet Blue pilot who banned him from boarding the plane.
In a statement, Jet Blue said Doyle"was deemed a safety concern by the pilot in command after using the word 'bomb.'"
An "investigation" by officials revealed that the situation was "innocuous," but Doyle and Petteway had already missed their flight, and their weekend plans were completely ruined.
Doyle says the free round-trip ticket Jet Blue gave him "doesn't make up for the embarrassment or the fact that we missed something that we'd been planning for two years."
And the airline was unable to guarantee that Doyle wouldn't face similar harassment the next time around.
"I mean this has happened multiple times in my life," he said. "And it just, it hurts."
