Family with autistic daughter forced off plane after requesting hot food

The mother of an autistic girl has told how they were forced to get off a flight that made an emergency landing because the airline said her daughter was “disruptive”. Dr Donna Beegle said they were flying to Portland, Oregon, from a holiday at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, with United Airlines when 15-year-old Juliette began to get hungry. She said Juliette refused snacks they had brought with them and needed hot food quickly to avoid her having a “meltdown”.

The flight attendant said, ‘There’s not anything we can get you’, so I said, 'Well how about we wait for her to have a meltdown, and start crying and she tries to scratch, and then you’ll want to help her’.

Dr Donna Beegle, mother of Juliette

She told KPTV: “I asked the flight attendant if they had anything hot, because Juliette is very particular about her food. If it’s warm she won’t eat it, if it’s cold she won’t eat it, it has to have steam rolling off of it." The family were told hot meals could only be served to first-class passengers but an attendant did eventually bring food and Juliette calmed down. The aircraft then made an emergency landing in Salt Lake City, Utah, where police boarded the plane and asked the family to leave because the pilot was "not comfortable” with the situation. The family has complained to the Federal Aviation Administration and plans to sue the airline.

After working to accommodate Dr Beegle and her daughter during the flight, the crew made the best decision for the safety and comfort of all of our customers and elected to divert to Salt Lake City after the situation became disruptive.

United Airlines statement

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