Autistic Girl Allegedly Removed From United Flight for Acting "Fussy"
The family of a 15-year-old autistic girl is suing United Airlines after pilots made an emergency landing and kicked them off a flight in a humiliating scene last week—simply because the girl was acting “fussy,” says one witness.
The girl’s mother, Donna Beegle, says the trouble began when she “noticed a telltale sign” that her daughter was hungry. Via KGW:
On the flight from Houston to Portland, Donna asked a United flight attendant if Juliet could have something hot to eat. She says the flight attendant told her only first class passengers get hot food. Donna told the flight attendant her daughter would probably have a meltdown. And she did.
“She lashes out and scratches,” said Chuck Forbes, Juliet’s dad.
One of the flight attendants eventually brought Juliet some hot food. Beegle offered to pay and thought that would be the end of it.
“The next thing we hear is we’re doing an emergency landing in Salt Lake City,” said Beegle. “We have a passenger on board with a behavior issue.”
Beegle claims the captain told her he didn’t feel comfortable flying with her daughter on the plane. And when the flight landed in Salt Lake City, the family was escorted off the plane by two armed police officers.
That’s a serious response to what sounds like a fairly minor issue! Well, you might be thinking, perhaps the girl was acting more disruptive than her family is letting on.
Not exactly, say witnesses.
“The child would make noise every now and then, no louder than, say, a baby crying,” one passenger, who shot the video above, tells KOIN. “I don’t think they should have landed a plane for her being fussy.”
But even the more critical passengers admit any potential “threat” posed by the girl was based on total conjecture.
“There was a lot of howling, and we thought well, what’s going on? And it never stopped,” Hedlund said.
“She wasn’t put off the plane because she had autism, she was put off the plane because she was maybe proposing some kind of a threat, to (about) 170 other people at 36,000 feet, which doesn’t make anyone feel safe,” Hedlund said. “What if she got crazy and got up and opened an exit door at 36,000 feet?”
What if! Geez.
[image via AP]
