Curiosity
Students kicked Off Flight: 100 Kids Booted From Plane For Acting Up
Students kicked Off Flight: 100 Kids Booted From Plane For Acting Up
What began as a redeye flight from New York City to Atlanta took a turn for the worse as 101 students from the Yeshiva of Flatbush School were ejected from the flight along with their 8 chaperones.
The students are all Orthodox Jews as the name Yeshiva implies a school of both religious and secular learning.
Naturally, the students and chaperones believe they were mistreated. AirTran, now part of Southwest Airlines, claims the students were guilty of disorderly conduct. It is said the students were not properly seated and continued use of personal electronic devices such as cellphones even after being asked to shut the devices down.
CNN describes the scene:
Southwest, which owns AirTran, said the group of “non-compliant passengers” would not stay seated, and some were using their mobile devices after being asked not to. When the students failed to comply with requests from the flight crew, including the captain, they were asked to leave the plane, delaying the AirTran flight for 45 minutes, said Southwest spokesman Brad Hawkins.
The students believe the crew of the plane overreacted despite the students complying with every request to be seated and turn off their electronic devices.
The Yeshiva of Flatbush School is conducting its own investigation and says that even those students who were overly excited to be on the trip complied with requests from the crew even though in some cases it took two requests for them to comply. Some of the students believe they were targeted because they are Jews.
“They treated us like we were terrorists; I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m not someone to make these kinds of statements,” Zehavi said. “I think if it was a group of non-religious kids, the air stewardess wouldn’t have dared to kick them off.”
They claim the crew behaved belligerently with them despite their obvious good behavior.
Staffers from the Yeshivah of Flatbush say the flight crew made “a mountain out of a molehill.”
Source material:
Students Kicked Off Flight: School opens ‘investigation’ after airline kicks students off plane
http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/03/us/new-york-students-off-plane/index.html
students kicked off flight
http://www.upi.com/blog/2013/06/04/101-students-kicked-off-flight/5711370364338/
Don’t make me turn this plane around: 100 students kicked off flight
http://www.nbcnews.com/travel/dont-make-me-turn-plane-around-100-kids-kicked-flight-6C10195143