Police marched a Birmingham family off an aircraft – after a row over a disabled four-year-old’s seating arrangements.
Mum Sabrina McCarl said she was “humiliated” by Monarch staff after she protested that her young son Tiago could not sit alone and wear a safety harness for take-off.
The dispute ended with police boarding the craft and the family leaving the plane with it still on the ground at Birmingham Airport.
But Monarch insisted they were “removed” because of their “threatening and abusive behaviour towards the cabin crew”. “Everyone stared at us as we were led off the plane by police,” Sabrina said. “It looked like we were criminals. It was disgusting.
“Tiago found it very distressing.
“When we got home he had a bad seizure and was vomiting. We were all crying – it was humiliating.”
Sabrina, 25, had been due to fly to Portugal on holiday with Tiago, her partner Marco Simoes, 31, and their son Ruben, aged 17 months.
Tiago has epilepsy, global developmental delay and septic optic dysplasia, which causes severe seizures, and Sabrina said he had previously flown sitting on her lap and wearing a child’s seat belt.
She admitted she became “stressed and tired” when cabin crew insisted the youngster would have to sit in his own seat, but denied she was aggressive.
“Tiago cannot hold his head up, let alone sit up in a chair,” Sabrina said.
“He has lots of specially-made equipment such as a chair, buggy, hoist and chair lift, that has been approved by doctors and physiotherapists.
“I didn’t feel comfortable letting him sit in this harness when I had no idea if he would be safe.
“I told Monarch he was very disabled when I booked the flights, they were aware of the situation.
“When we got on the plane I was obviously stressed and tired but I wasn’t aggressive. I sat with one crew member and she was polite to me.”
Sabrina said Monarch had refused to refund her family the price of their flight tickets after the row, which happened on the 7.15am flight to Faro last Thursday.
A Monarch spokesman said: “Monarch Airlines is in the process of investigating the incident on-board ZB402, Birmingham to Faro.
“The passengers in question were removed from the aircraft because of their threatening and abusive behaviour towards the cabin crew.
“Safety for both our passengers and crew is paramount and the airline has absolute discretion to remove passengers from an aircraft if they behave in a threatening, abusive, insulting or disorderly manner.”
Insp Keith Wiseman, of the Airport Policing Unit, said: “Officers were called onto the plane before take-off and were present while the four passengers left the aircraft.
“This is a civil dispute between the passengers and the airline, nobody was arrested and no crimes have been reported to us.”
Source: Birmingham Mail
Lamentável o episódio, Ricardo. Aqui no Brasil talvez o desfecho fosse diferente, porque, ao contrário dos países com fama de mais ‘civilizados’, ‘primeiro mundo’ y otras cositas más, nossa legislação é bastante protetiva. Nosso problema é desconhecer a legislação e, por consequência, não evoca-la, mas certamente num avião em nosso território acho difícil que os demais passageiros aceitassem que uma família fosse retirada do voo, em razão da alegação de uma mãe no sentido de que as regras genéricas da aviação colocariam seu filho em risco. Grande abraço.
Creio que no final tenha sido um mal entendido, mas que mesmo assim não deveria acontecer. Não se pode impedir da mãe fornecer medidas de segurança ao filho, mas também não se eve pedir isso de maneira brusca e ameaçadora. São dois lados colocando seus argumentos.