Autistic child forced off airplane

[Ceej]

Kind of old

A 2«-year-old autistic child is at the center of a controversy, and his mother is furious. She said she and her child were forced off of an American Eagle flight in North Carolina. "The pilot made an announcement that there was a woman and a child on the plane, and the child's uncontrollable," Janice Farrell said. "And, at that point, I just broke down." The mother said she was stunned by the crew's reaction. The mother and child were traveling from North Carolina to New Jersey to visit family. Farrell said her son became upset as the plane was taxiing to the runway for takeoff. She claims she was working to calm him down when the flight crew made the situation worse. "She kept coming over and tugging his seatbelt to make it tighter, 'This has to stay tight.' And he was wiggling around trying to get out of his seatbelt, and she kept coming over and reprimanding him and yelling at him," Farrell said. "... He just melted down. He saw me getting upset. He was upset. He was on the floor rolling around." Farrell said the pilot then came out of cockpit and issued a stern warning to the toddler to stop. She said that's when things escalated. The pair was forced off the plane and returned home. The airline said the child was having a quote "raging fit," and the mother was not working with the crew. As for Farrell and her son, they're planning to take a train to New Jersey.

http://www.myfoxphilly.com/myfox/pag...Y&pageId;=1.1.1

[birdmangriffin]

This is a tricky issue. Obviously, you have to be sensitive to the issue of the autistic child and his mom, who are paying passengers. However, you also have the safety and comfort of the other passengers and crew to be concerned with as well.

[rubbery]

This is a tricky issue. Obviously, you have to be sensitive to the issue of the autistic child and his mom, who are paying passengers. However, you also have the safety and comfort of the other passengers and crew to be concerned with as well.

I agree, and in this particular case, it seems like the right call was made. It looks like that kid was way out of control.

[JaY_B]

Hard too say what the right thing in this situation to do was, the pilot can not let rowdy passengers on planes, a precedent has been set when drunkards or loud passengers are kicked off.

However regardless of the child being autistic or not, they should of remembered that the child was 2, and possibly made allowances.

It does seem like the mother hindered things, in this sort of situation she should of been sensible and try to calm down her kid.

It's a tough call though to be honest, I think at the end of the day the pilot had to do what he had to do.... maybe could of shown some more discretion though?

[birdmangriffin]

Did you (or anyone else) ever see the story fairly recently (within probably a month or so) about the autistic child and a Catholic church. Basically it was the same story, where he was out of control, to the point of knocking down parishoners and jumping in a car and revving the engine. The family either was going to sue the church, or did sue the church because their "rights were being violated"

My only qualm, given the information in the original story, was the way that it was handled over the PA system.

[JaY_B]

Did you (or anyone else) ever see the story fairly recently (within probably a month or so) about the autistic child and a Catholic church. Basically it was the same story, where he was out of control, to the point of knocking down parishoners and jumping in a car and revving the engine. The family either was going to sue the church, or did sue the church because their "rights were being violated"

This is a horrible example of the law suit culture affecting England and America at the moment, The family should not use there kids disability as a route to money and publicity

[birdmangriffin]

This is a horrible example of the law suit culture affecting England and America at the moment, The family should not use there kids disability as a route to money and publicity

Really? You guys have this problem over there too? I can't STAND it. Every other thing is grounds for taking a problem to the ACLU and having a lawsuit come up.

[MunkeyGolfer]

That's just unfortunate but the pilot does have 150ish other passengers he has to think about also.

[effektz]

Yeah it is unfortunate but like everybody else has been saying, the world doesn't revolve around that family. I can understand their want to travel "like everybody else", but sometimes you just can't. Private companies have the right to deny business to anybody for any reason, so unless civil rights were violates, there's not much she can do about it.

[Soup Fan]

The problem is that Oprah has every mother in the country convinced that her child is autistic if they aren't talking by a certain age or if they get this vaccine or all sorts of other stupid reasons. Broadening the autism spectrum to include 30 or 40% of the population not only allows for excuse making by lazy parents, but it also detracts from the seriousness of the condition and the treatment of "truly autistic" children.

I don't care to chime in on an issue like this if I didn't experience it first hand because there is no way to know what actually happened. Plus, to be honest...it just makes me sad.

[JKilgore44]

I agree, I think a lot of parents want to classify their child as anything but normal, rather it be autistic or ADHD (which are closely related). I would think that nearly half of grade-school children are classified as one or the other. I don't understand how a parent can think that of a child that's only 6 years old. It's as though their child has a problem because he couldn't color inside the lines or make a distinction between the letter d or p. If their kid has a lot of energy (which could be a result of over consumption of sugar, a problem that rests on the parents shoulders) they assume the child has isues and resort to medication. It seems as though parents aren't giving their children the time and attention they deserve because of the fast-paced lifestyle of the average American.

Whatever happened on the airplane wasn't a pretty scene. I can see it from both ends of the spectrum, but the flight attendants need to be more sensitive to the fact that the child could be suffering from extreme anxiety associated with his disorder. Also, from the parents perspective, she should have been aware of the possibility of that situation and been better prepared to deal with. It's the parents responsibility to help the child maintain a calm demeanor. Either way, the situation was sad. I hope the parents don't exploit the situation and try get some kind of settlement out of it. If anything, she should be refunded her ticket value and that should be the end of the story. Don't subject your disabled children to situations where they become vulnerable.

[RickK]

Last year, I was on a flight from Houston to Amsterdam. About 6 hours into the flight, a huge commotion started about 4 rows up from me. I could see someone flailing their arms around and screaming. This went on for a couple of minutes and one of the flight attendants went there. Things calmed down but in about 5 minutes it started all over again. It got very disturbing. Turns out it was an austistic teenage girl and to make matters worse, she was blind. It was only she and her father. For what seemed like 10 minutes they were trying to calm her down. There were several flight attendants there and then one of the officers from the flight deck came back. They ended up making a call over the intercom asking if there was a physician on the plane. Someone came forward, finally, and they gave this girl some sort of medication to calm her down. Had this happened over land, I do not doubt that they might have put the plane down and removed the girl and her father. But, over the North Atlantic...just no place to put it down. Very unfortunate situation. It was pretty amazing how much strength this poor girl had. It took 3 people to restrain her.