Passengers support Autistic girl forced off plane

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*sigh*

The mother told them her daughter could bite and scratch if she doesn't get what she wants which I think was the real reason why they landed the plane and kicked them off. Violence is not okay so it was for the safety of the other passengers. If the mother hadn't made that threat, I bet they wouldn't have gotten kicked off.

I keep reading that the mom "threatened". The mom explained what could happen if her daughter had a meltdown. That is not the same as a threat at all. Who had control, at that point, of whether the child melted down? Not the mother, therefore how could her words be a threat? If she didn't give that information, everyone would be criticizing her for not letting the flight attendant know what was happening.
I've flown a lot, domestically and internationally, so here's some things I know:
1) Flight attendants are frequently narcissistic, gossipy, uneducated jerks who like to abuse whatever authority they're given. Especially the American ones.
2) Airline food is small, prepackaged, and there are extras. Getting that kid some hot food would have taken about 30 seconds and cost the airline $0 (mom offered to buy it).

This story is really about an ignorant pig of a flight attendant who got "revenge" by having a family kicked off a plane.
I should add, United is my least favorite airline to fly. They have creaky planes that sound like they're going to fall apart midflight, and they always put one at least one piece of my luggage on a different plane. That means I have to go to their office to find it, or sometimes fill out papers and have it delivered later. They deserve to go out of business quickly.

I just read this article on yahoo's site and read the comments there...we truly live in a world of gleeful ignorance. Some of my favorites:

"The other passengers and airline should sue the girl's family for the disruption so they learn their lesson."

"I'm a special education teacher, I know how autistic kids work. It sounds like the girl had poor parenting and was used to getting everything she wants. I see that with a lot of my students, they choose not to behave and you have to be vigilant enforcing rules with them. Autistics are the worst, they'll continue to do things you explicitly tell them not to regardless of the punishment you hand out. I love all my students but I'd rather not deal with autistics if my job didn't require it."

"Airline sensitivity training for autism? How about if you're mentally ill you just don't get on a flight where you're a danger to everyone else."

"The mom's first mistake wasn't asking for a meal it was getting her child vaccinated in the first place. Bet she wishes she could go back in time and change that but now she's got a daughter with brain damage. I don't feel sorry for her, she made her own stupid choice."

Here is another article with more detail


https://gma.yahoo.com/woman-claims-she- ... ories.html


It also explains why she couldn't bring food on the plane and she said her daughter was special needs not autistic. But she still said she would try and scratch after she mentioned the word meltdown.

So the message to parents seems to be this: when you fly, don't tell anyone your kid is autistic. Don't give them any warning or heads-up whatsoever, because they might kick you off the flight. Just wing it and hope for the best, and if your kid acts up just pretend you're as surprised as they are. Got it. Seems like a stupid way to go about things, but then the world is often a stupid, stupid place.

It sounds to me like the mother's comments mean that she is holding some kind of barely controlled aggressive dog, like her daughter will attack on command or something. It just comes across as her being flippant and sarcastically difficult. There were better ways to phrase how the daughter would react to problems, and adding the part about when they would listen doesn't sound very safe sounding, more like the mom would unleash her or something. She should/could have explained in a better way that sounds less sarcastic and semi-threatening than she side.

I don't think the pilot had any other option to land the plane because despite what we might hope, there are chances that some meltdowns will have violence that can not be controlled and Autistic individuals may not always be able to re-assert control without having accidentally hurt someone. In the extremely rare instance, some may not even care. Despite that, the pilot would not have known what kind of person he was dealing with, and with the terrorist scares (legitmate and otherwise), landing and checking with the police was more right to do.

In my opinion, the mother shares some blame for presenting the issue in a fairly threatening sounding fashion which caused concerns; the flight attendant shares blame for perhaps not reporting matters/details completely accurately possibly; there is blame to go around here, but none on the daughter I think.