Posted on 05/10/2015 2:40:11 PM PDT by Morgana
FULL TITLE: 'It's fear of autism': Fellow passenger says she SUPPORTS plane decision to kick off little girl and family as United refuse to apologize and mother calls for action
A controversial decision by a United Airlines pilot to make an emergency landing to remove a family because their autistic daughter was being 'disruptive' has received support from at least one passenger onboard.
The airline has so far refused to apologise over the May 5 incident which saw Dr Donna Beegle, her husband, son and their 15-year-old daughter Juliette removed during an emergency stop in Salt Lake City as they flew on a connecting flight from Houston to Portland.
Now passenger Marilyn Hedlund has spoken out to voice her support for the airline which is being threatened with a discrimination lawsuit by Beegle.
Hedlund told KOIN6 that the 16-year-old girl wasn't removed because she has autism but because her behavior threatened the safety of everyone onboard the plane.
'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?'
She praised the flight attendants for how they had been working quietly with the family for nearly an hour before the pilot made the decision to make an emergency landing.
'There was a lot of howling, and we thought well, what's going on? And it never stopped,' Hedlund said.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
This was not a baby. This was not a “little girl.” This was a berserk teenager. Even her mother admitted she was afraid her daughter might “scratch” someone.
I completely support the pilot and airline. It is the parents who owe an apology to the entire flight crew and all the passengers.
As others have said, I don’t like to fly much anymore. But if this is the policy of United, whenever I do fly, it will be on United.
I don’t fly but it’s not because of children/teens/adults with autism, it is because of people with names like Mohammed or Achmed if you get my drift. No airline is safe from people with those names.
Some people like to use their children as weapons against others. I think this is one of those cases.
“if howling daughter didn’t get hot food from first class she was going to scratch someone.”
Good grief. If a 15-year-old exhibits animal behavior she shouldn’t fly. Sounds like a sci-fi movie in the making. The parents know their kid; they knew this could not end well and made other arrangements.
Since the mom knew that the food in first class would be important to the daughter, she should have purchased first class seats. It looks like they could afford the tickets. The mom is a scammer.
Yep - a lot of "what ifs" and nothing concrete except for some potential inconvenience.
Soon they will stop allowing passengers on planes because of the potential "what ifs" and then, the pilots and crew will be grounded because of cases where they have been complicit or in the lead for some bad things.
Oh my!
Spunky little feller, ain’t you?
I’m not a “feller.” Even those with below average intelligence know when to stop digging, but you’ve now doubled down on your “tard” and refuse to put down the shovel.
Odd how you ignore all the similar remarks on the thread.
Who else incorrectly identified ASD? I see some posting that the girl should have been thrown off and I agree. She is not at a functioning level to fly. I also suspect, like others, that the mom was using the child to gain things she did not want to pay for. I haven’t seen anybody use the term you used. There are many ASD parents on FR, and FR also has some ASD posters. They are not “tards”; their IQs are quite high. Don’t label something that you don’t understand. It makes you look foolish.
Howling and moaning isn’t exactly a threat.
“If a 15-year-old exhibits animal behavior she shouldn’t fly”
Try telling that to a professional Martyr Mom.
“She was acting like a tard “
Excuse me. I’m ASD.
I don’t know (or care) what ASD is.
I described her behavior.. I did not make a diagnosis.
Deal with it.
And I decribed your behavior: tard.
Get over it.
Words don’t bother me a whit.
You sure seem to get your panties in a knot over them, though.
“Try telling that to a professional Martyr Mom.”
Really. Who’s to say that Prof. Martyr Mom doesn’t have a scam going so that the kid “acts out” on command? Parents have pulled these stunts before to get attention, money, etc.
I guess autism is an actual “thing”; I have to say I don’t know. I used to think it was the fad of the decade like ADD, which used to be “bratism” and quickly cured by a pop on the rear end.
Professional Martyr Mom puts her child in a situations where she needs to control everyone else except her child. If her child even smells peanut butter, the child will die instantly so no one in the school can have peanuts of any kind.
She puts her child on a plane knowing that an eruption will take place so she demands everyone cater to her desires.
I completely agree. I was just saying that that's all that was going on for the captain to work with. If he felt it should stop the flight, that would be his call, but he shouldn't have claimed it was any more than that.
You obviously have not flown domestically for years. There is no longer hot food in Y Class on any of the US carriers, as far as I know.
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