On Monday, an American Eagle flight which was in the process of taxiing at the Raleigh-Durham Airport in North Carolina turned around to kick 2-and-a-half-year-old Jarett Farell (pictured left) and his mother Janice off of the plane. According to WTVD, the unhappy toddler was crying loudly and after a few warnings, the decision to turn the plane around was made. Janice Farell contends that the crew was very short-tempered and unsympathetic toward her and her son and that everything would have been ok if it weren’t for the flight attendant who kept upsetting Jarett. American Airlines claims they did nothing wrong. Details, inside…
The article says,
As the American Eagle flight headed down the taxiway, two-and-a-half-year-old Jarett Farrell wasn’t a happy traveler.
His mother says she was doing all she could to calm the autistic boy, but got no sympathy from the flight crew.
“If they just would have been a little more understanding I think that none of this would have been a problem,” Mother, Janice Farrell said.
But it became a big problem for everyone on the plane. Farrell says that’s because the flight attendant was indignant.
“She kept coming over and tugging his seatbelt to make it tighter, ‘This has to stay tight’. And then he was wiggling around and trying to get out of his seatbelt. And she kept coming over and reprimanding him and yelling at him,” Farrell said.
One of the pilots came back to the cabin with a stern warning and Farrell says the frustration level escalated.
She says Jarrett picked up on that and things only got worse.
“He just melted down. He saw me getting upset. He was upset. He was on the floor rolling around,” she said.
The pilot returned to the cockpit, turned the plane around and headed back to the terminal.
“The pilot made an announcement that there was a woman and her child on the plane and the child is uncontrollable. And at that point I just broke down,” Farrell said.
Farrell says when she got back to her home in Cary she called her husband and they decided that she should call American Airlines corporate. She says a company representative apologized and said the incident should never have happened.
But that’s not what American Airlines told Eyewitness News.
A spokesman in Dallas says Jarret was pitching a “raging fit”.
And that Janice, who was in a front-row seat, refused to allow her bag to be placed in an overhead compartment, even though there was no under seat stowage.
He says that with a “passenger not complying with FAA regulations, this was the right decision.”
Farrell says even though her travel bag had things to calm Jarrett, she did indeed give it to the flight attendant.
“She took my bag and put it up top,” Farrell said.
Farrell is taking the train to see family in New Jersey and she and her husband say they will never fly American again.
Without having been on the flight, it’s difficult to say who, if anyone, was at fault. If a child is literally out of control, we can understand why this would necessitate the child’s removal from the flight, especially since it was still on the ground. If indeed it was necessary, we just wish it could have happened in a way that didn’t leave Jarett and his mother so upset.
Autistic toddler kicked off airplane [WTVD] (Thanks to everyone who sent this in!)
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@weehawk: I think autism is the new ADD. It sucks for the people who really have it but there are a lot I think are being over-diagnosed.
By the way, isn’t there some kind of Mickey Finn they could’ve slipped this kid prior to getting on? I mean, I’m no advocate for drugging 2.5 year olds but I’m sure a doctor could’ve found some low dosage knock-out drug so he could sleep for a good 6 hours or so.
God help those on the train.
@Gokuhouse: I guess he is crying at this whole website because saying your kid is autistic to get out of your responsibility to follow the rules is bad. The only reason this is on the news, like i stated before, is because hes “autistic”. In actuality, the chance of him really being autistic at 2.5yr old is 20-30% due to their brain has not developed enough to know any sense what so ever.
Stop pointing me out on all the comments D: I was the first to state the obviousness that everyone else has stated after me. RTFA and stfu.
@vgerik1234: Given a proper diagnostic of being autistic***
edit >_>
@kathyl:
Although the “new” style of parenting is to let your kids run around and do whatever the hell they want, and in extreme conditions, put them in “time out” (guffaw), in the REAL world, if you want to do certain things, you have to obey real rules. If this kid can’t conform to the rules of the airline, that are put there for everyone’s safety, then he doesn’t need to be flying. She can take a rental car and drive 800 miles. Although autism is an actual disorder, it doesn’t place people above having to follow rules…it isn’t *that* severe of a disorder.
@weehawk: I second these comments, and will add that Cary is an acronym — Containment Area for Relocated Yankees.
I’ve said many times I would gladly pay double to fly 21 & Over Airlines.
I think AA Did the right thing in a bad way. It was obvious they were rude bastards about it.
It sucks for the mom and child but you know… It would be unbearable for everyone else.
aaaaand teh child haters come out of the woodwork. i say she should’ve sedated the kid half an hour before the flight.
The airline here created the “uncontrollable” situation by forcing the seatbelt tighter. Instead of being asshats they could have had the mother resolve the problem, and off that unless she can do so in a period of time, they would be let off the plane.
Instead of running over and tightening the seatbelt for a child, who clearly didnt want to be in the situation, they could have totally handled this in a professional matter.
Wait, wait, wait, wait… Airline, non-professional behaviour is pretty much norm nowadays.
As somebody who COMMUTES by plane, I would rather deal with this kid that 90% of the a-holes on this thread. An autistic child can be calmed. A baby can be given a bottle. Unfortunately, there’s not much that can be done about obnoxious adults. For every howling baby I’ve been on a plane with, I’ve had to deal with TEN jerkbags – you know, the guys who hog the armrest so that they’re elbowing you in the ribs, the bored person who forgot to bring a book so they chatter at you about YOURS instead of letting you read in piece; Mr. Has To Lean His Seat Back Into Your Lap….
Allegedly, the flight attendant kept coming over and tightening the child’s seat belt.
Fine…but WHY didn’t the mother calmly explain to the FA that the child was autistic, that strange people touching and yelling at him made him upset, and that the mother would be the one to adjust her son’s seat belt? Does that seem too much to ask? Did she not say anything during these alleged abuses the FA laid down on her?
For the record…I flew from O’Hare to Cleveland-Hopkins last night. 44 minute flight. Child sitting RIGHT behind me, on his mother’s lap, banging on the tray table for a good 15 minutes until I turned around. Longest 44 minute flight in the entire world.
For those supporting the parent in this case, the attitude seems to be “since I have a child with a disability I have the right to make the lives of all those around me a living hell.” BZZZZZZZZT! Wrong. Air travel has become enough of a hellish experience without forcing all the other paying customers on this plane to a) face an unsafe situation with a potential child shaped missile loose in the cabin and b) to listen to screaming for the duration of the flight. Your child, your problem. If you lose control, expect someone else to exercise it.
@anonymousryan:
Yeah that’s one point of view. But what if the adult is the screaming raging asshole, should he be drugged too?
@You-Me-Us:
I agree with the idea of kid-friendly flights. They should be cheaper so if people don’t mind being befriended by a 4-year-old, they can fly. When traveling with my little guy, I always find it more interesting when he has people who he can talk to aside from his family.
@HAL1300:
Well let’s take your comment a step further
-Based on most airlines policy since the child had special needs they were boarded first. So they have more time to get settled -That’s ADA compliant
-The bag was on the floor in an area that did not have under seat storage. -Sorry the ADA does not trump safety regulations. I’m not going to guess what went down over that because of the 3 versions of any story rule, there’s the FA’s version, the mothers version, and how it actually went down.
It seems like you have a bit of an unrealistic view of what the ADA grants, it grants equal access and sets penalties for discrimination. The access issue was covered, because the kid had a seat. The discrimination issue does not come into play, unless the FA or some other airline official stated that they would have to leave the plane because the child had autism. Leave because of a disturbance is ok, may not be right but it’s legal, Leave because of non compliance with safety issue, again legal but possibly not right depending on the other things that went down.
On behalf of the other passengers on this flight, I would like to thank the flight crew for making this decision.
Dude – the kid was wigging out and throwing a fit. Cmon – the lady should have known better than to put him on the plane.
Every person in this thread calling the child a brat should be ashamed. The Mom did her best to travel with her child, but it wasn’t good enough. The airline staff sound like they handled it poorly, and lacked any semblance of kindness. Classic lose-lose situation.
The ADA requires that airlines serve disabled people, but not at the expense of safety. Blind? You can’t sit in the exit row.
I feel so sad for this parent and child, whose lives are made so much more difficult and painful by autism. Perhaps AA could find a way to compensate the family for the flight.
@mxjohnson: Charge more for childless flights?
It’s only about 25% an issue with the child (not their fault). Most of the fee is for the privilege of avoiding bad parents. Yes, I am one of the “drinkers,” but just as I limit my alcohol intake on a flight to 1 or 2 beverages, I do get the impression you and your child are probably good company on a plane.
If the child has this kind of condition, and flying is only a rare exception, is it really a terrible solution to ask your doctor for a safe dosage of some calming meds?
I feel bad for the mom too. It’s hard enough dealing with a non-autistic child on a flight. For all of you intolerant passenger types, a lesson in patience is in order. Chances are, you were that obnoxious kid that no on wanted on the flight at some point. Should your parents have stopped you from seeing your relatives? This selfishness is part of our problem in the world. See it from another person’s point of view. If someone had moved to help this poor woman, rather than condemn her for having given birth to an autistic baby, this situation would not have escalated the way it did.
@theora55: Where in the article does it say the mom did ‘her best’? My impression from what we know is that this probably isn’t a true statement. We’re all jumping to conclusions here (me included), but so are you with that statement.
situation 1: flight attendant tightens seat belt, sends child into rage, leaving parent unhappy and people on Consumerist suggesting they sue.
situation 2: flight attendant doesn’t tighten seat belt, results in child getting harmed during take off, leaving parent unhappy and people on Consumerist suggesting they sue.
@theora55:
Why in the world should the airline compensate these people? They could not follow the rules, so they were not allowed to fly. Period.
@armour: It’s understandable that it’s a disability, and that they have no control over their condition, but if their actions put their health at risk in a situation which would hold the airline accountable, what else could the airline do? Go “Oh, it’s autism! Not my fault!”? Like we’d find that acceptable.
I know that people in the airline industry abuse their power, I’ve seen it. Sadly, they don’t have any power and I think when the plane lands we should all line up and give them a swift kick in the ass.
I think of the scene in Anger Management where Adam Sandler was on the plane.
I watched the GMA video, and it did make me wonder about what kinds of parenting skills are involved here – does she ever put steps into place to try to be consistent and discipline the kid? She was complaining that they wouldn’t let him watch his DVD player – the child is 2 and a half, and autistic for christ sakes, and yet you let him watch DVDs on demand? Not healthy. I also noticed in the video that in front of his DVD player he had a box of sugar cereal. Autistic or not, when I see parents in public places giving their kids a DVD player to shut them up, I just think that’s going to come back to haunt you. And if your kid already has problems focusing or dealing, is that really such a good idea?
When I see parents obviously trying to discipline their kids, but the kid is just young or disabled and having a meltdown, I understand and sympathize. It’s the ones who do nothing and let let them run all over, kick your seat endlessly, never say no and shove a DVD player in front of them or some shitty fast food in their mouths that I feel aren’t really doing their jobs correctly.
Nature intended the frequency of a screaming child to signal the attention of a parent (which I imagine goes doubly for Autistic children).
Do you remember the woman whose epileptic seizures were triggered by the sound of Mary Hart’s voice? Physical discomfort caused by kids’ screaming in a tiny, sealed cabin is not necessarily an unreasonable claim by “insensitive” people.
If you know that your child is prone to screaming for whatever reason, how about investing in a tub of earplugs before the trip, in a effort of good faith to the people around you?
Now, while I find it totally believable that American would not handle a situation in the best manner, what do you realistically do with any passenger who refuses to stay seated for takeoff? I have some wonderful, understanding flight attendant friends and they do indeed bend over backwards for the comfort of their passengers (I’ve seen them in action!).
@armour: Suspected terrorism is not the only reason for kicking people off the plane. It’s kind of like how the driver of a car is responsible for the lives of the people in the car. If someone refuses to wear a seatbelt in my car, I refuse to drive with them in it. On a plane, the flight crew is responsible for the safety of everyone on the plane – if you refuse to follow the safety rules, you get kicked off the plane.
@anonymousryan: Hope to god you’re kidding.
But it sounds to me like the mom was pitching a fit because the flight attendant dare tell her to do anything she disagreed with (store bags, tighten seat belt etc…) The kid saw the mom screaming and he started to…
I’ve taken care of autistic kids before…they don’t just start screaming for no reason.
Sorry guys, this one is a wash in my book. It’s a no-win situation.
Mother with autistic kid, really what can she do? Unless flying is routine the child will act out. The only other option here would have been to sedate the child but no one really wants to do that.
American, their goal is to get passengers from point A to point B at a profit. Flight attendants need to keep passengers calm. This child wasn’t and likely wasn’t going to be. They could either be the bad guy and kick a screaming kid off the flight or they could be the bad guy and put up with it causing all the other passengers greif. Trust me if it were the latter situation we would be reading about a horrible flight where an unruly child terrorized the passengers throughout the flight.
Like I said No-Win. Granted this is likely a short hop flight it still would have likely been one of the longest flights the passengers and crew would have been on.
@kepler11: So kepler, since when does the ADA NOT apply to airlines? My understanding of the ADA is that it applies EVERYWHERE AT ALL TIMES. Or have you not read it? The Americans with Disabilities Act was not given a pass when a plane is involved.
See: [www.ada.gov]
Which covers specifically:
ADA Regulation for Title III, as printed in the Code of Federal Regulations (7/1/94). The Department of Justice’s regulation implementing title III of the ADA, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in “places of public accommodation” (businesses and non-profit agencies that serve the public) and “commercial facilities” (other businesses). The regulation includes Appendix A to Part 36 – Standards for Accessible Design establishing minimum standards for ensuring accessibility when designing and constructing a new facility or altering an existing facility.
@theora55: Perhaps AA could find a way to compensate the family for the flight.
Greyhound tickets.
I can see both sides but would like to point out that American Eagle planes are very small and cramped. The Embraer jets have 3 across seating (1 seat on one side of the aisle and 2 on the other) and very little headroom. It’s not a big comfy jet, its noisier than bigger jets and the pressurization on them always gives me ear problems. The pressurization kicks in way too fast when they close the door. I can see a child having problems and those around reacting in the small space.
@Pithlit:
“Wow. My son is mainstreamed in public school. I love the people who have worked with them, and can’t say enough good things about them. I can’t picture them jumping to conclusions and being so judgmental the way you and THE IT CRONE have.”
I’m probably late, but I had the same thought about how cold and insensitive their comments were. I would expect such comments from individuals with zero knowledge about autism. I definitely wouldn’t expect such commentary from anyone who competently works with autistic children. My wife co-founded and co-directs a non-profit school for children with autism, and their waiting list is always packed due to the attitudes and inability of area public schools to provide (a) services for autistic children and (b) understanding and guidance for the parents. It seems that many public school districts (in my state at least) completely fail with this second component.
It seems like a large number of parents of autistic kids are either on anti-depressants or getting a divorce. One could probably play “chicken or the egg” with that information, but I’ve hard time and time again that autistic children will tear a parent’s psyche apart for reasons just like the airplane incident. With a physical handicap or Down’s Syndrome, the handicap is obvious to the eye. With autism, the child looks just like every other kid in the world, and the parent is left looking like he or she has an inability or unwillingness to control their child. Based on many of the comments on this posting, I guess I can see that such parents aren’t living in paranoia. That is exactly what the “other people” on the plane or in the grocery store think of them.
@Pithlit: I’ve worked with troubled kids before (managed group homes and did therapy with adolescents for 5 years until the lack of funding and insane politics drove me to nearly going insane myself) and it’s pretty easy to tell the parents that are really trying, the parents that are trying and being successful, and the parents that just don’t care and want someone else to take this problem away from them.
And since kids are almost always awesome once you get to know and understand them, it’s pretty easy to utterly and completely hate the parents that don’t want their kids.
As to the story at hand: Flying with kids is tough. Flying with a kid with special needs is really really tough. It takes a lot of preperation for both the parent and the kid, and sometimes it still doesn’t work.
I wouldn’t hate on anyone, but I do think AA could have been more customer friendly and diplomatic about the whole thing.
What a terrible situation. The only way I see that it could have been reliably prevented, if sedatives are out of the question, was for the child not to have been taken on the flight. It’s probably good that the flight attendant provoked this outburst. If the child was sensitive enough to react this way to the attendants behavior, the child probably would have melted down because of something else later when the plane was already airborne. The airline did the only thing they could, really, whether they were as sensitive as they could have been or not
Good. There should be special flights for families with children under a certain age. I can’t imagine how the rest of the flight would have gone.
“AA has more to lose by discomforting the rest of their passengers by leaving the annyoing kid on the plane”
“it might sound insensitive but if the child is a problem it should not fly.”
“Having a kid doesn’t make you special and if the brat is annoying everyone on the plane then you don’t need to be flying.”
EXACTLY.
@Corporate-Shill: yeppers.
@VersionQueen:
Don’t get too worked up about the child being autistic. Some friends of mine had an autistic child, and my ex-gf worked with other autistic children on a daily basis. There are varying levels of it, but in general they simply have a hard time relating to others or communicating. They are not retarded, they are not sociopaths, stupid, or anything like that. In general they are just as intelligent as most people (in general they are even smarter than most), and they definately recognize right and wrong. It is no excuse for poor parenting.
I understand the need for the airline to remove them from the plane, and they did what they had to do. However, it seems like the flight attendant and crew were almost trying to make the kid freak out.
Unless they move out of Cary, RDU and AA are just about the only way out of dodge, so good luck with avoiding American on future air travel.
Wow, reading some of the other comments here, it looks like parents aren’t the only people with entitlement issues.
@Xewleer:
“The Air line is at fault for not understanding his problem. They should not have made him upset, or his mother upset. Seriously, it was really badly handled.”
Because everyone can be easily trained to deal with ANY possible “problem” they might encounter…sure.
I applaud the Airline for removing a disruption from the flight. It’s unfortunate that the child couldn’t fly but I would be pissed if I had to go through a flight with an out of control child.
Yeah, doesn’t matter the affliction. Disruption is disruption and a ride on American Airlines is bad enough without the yelling and screaming.
The airline helped create this situation. I don’t blame the pilot for turning around, but this passenger needs to be well compensated for the failed flight. Clearly, the airline personnel were poorly trained in dealing with a special needs child. I don’t expect them to fly for any length of time under these circumstances, but I do expect the flight attendants to have sufficient training in dealing with children with special needs. Consider how common autism actually is… (or is it just me that knows so many people with autistic children?)
Every time I feel my faith in humanity restored, I come to the Consumerist threads where people make fun of retarded kids and their parents….brings me back to my senses. Thanks guy.
It’s a shame, but if the mother can’t control the child then he shouldn’t be flying. It’s the airline’s responsibility to make sure that all passengers are acting safely and not being disruptive. Also, I have to believe there was more than crying involved if they made the decision to turn the plane around. These decisions aren’t made nonchalantly, since they cost the company a large amount of money and cause the pilots a lot of hassle.
@SexierThanJesus: The child was allegedly autistic, not “retarded.”
I think we need to think about the good of the many here. Would it have been better to stay on the tarmac for hours while the mother attempted to get the child settled down? At one point do we take into account the other 100-200 people on the plane? Or the other 20 planes who can’t take off because of that delay? The missed connecting flights?
I feel bad for the mother and the child but ultimately we owe it to everyone else on that flight to get it into the air on-time, safely, and (hopefully) quietly.
This is crap. The kid’s autistic. Have some compassion you bastards.
I need to stop reading the comments. I have friends who don’t like kids — god, I’m not too fond of them myself at times, and I have one myself — but “crotchspawn”? “Poopdoll”? How are these comments constructive in the least?
The Consumerist needs to adopt a ban policy similar to Jezebel’s, and fast.
As someone who lived for eighteen years with an autistic (my little brother) and still acts as his caregiver, I symphatize with everyone in the article. The mother didn’t know how the child was going to react to new stimuli — there’s no way for certain she could have known that he was going to react quite like that on the plane. Maybe her son enjoys car and train rides, and she thought that this would be a piece of cake.
The airline did all they could do in the situation. It wouldn’t have been fair to inconvenience the other passengers and delay the flight further. I don’t know if they handled it with kid gloves, asking politely if they could rebook the flight or refund their ticket, but I can only hope so.
It’s as some others above noted earlier: there are no winners.