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[Skylace]

A 16-year-old girl who caught a cold during a school trip to New York was kicked off her flight home because she was coughing.

Rachel Collier was removed from the Continental Airlines plane as it was about to leave Newark, N.J., for Honolulu earlier this week. She had fallen asleep after boarding the plane with about three dozen classmates and woke up coughing and gasping for breath as it was about to take off.

"Everyone was looking at me," she said. "I couldn't talk because I lost my voice coughing so much. I was panicking."
The flight attendants gave her water, and a doctor on the flight said she would be OK to make the 10-hour flight. But the captain returned the aircraft to the gate to drop off the girl and one of her teachers.

Rachel said she started crying when the captain told her to leave. She and the teacher finally made it home the next day.

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Teacher Maile Kawamura, a chaperone for the spring break trip to New York and Washington, D.C., said she was shocked. The two didn't know what to do or where to stay, she said. They finally found accommodations in New York and bought clothes and toiletries.

Continental said in a statement that Collier was coughing "uncontrollably" on the plane Tuesday and that "the captain felt he was acting in the best interest of the passenger and other passengers on the flight."

Rachel's mother, Stephanie Collier, said Continental has agreed to reimburse her daughter's expenses incurred during the extra day, including the cost of the hotel.

"I felt it was really extreme for a coughing fit," she said. "We've all had coughing fits."

IN OTHER NEWS

A woman passed through security screening at New York's LaGuardia Airport with a stun gun and knife in her purse — but later discovered the mistake herself and alerted authorities.

The woman realized she was carrying the items Saturday after a short layover in Detroit and on her way to Denver.

"She immediately went, 'Oh, my God, I'm not supposed to have these here,' and called the flight attendant over," said Spirit Airlines spokeswoman Laura Bennett.

The pilot alerted Denver International Airport; police met the plane at the gate and took the woman into custody for questioning. She was released without charges.

"She did the right thing by giving up the items voluntarily, and she was never malicious," Bennett said. "We never considered her a threat."

Transportation Security Administration officials had no comment on the security slip. TSA official Darrin Kayser said the agency would investigate.

"It was an honest but odd mistake," Bennett said. "But it's true that people often don't think about what's in their luggage."
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Kick a kid off a flight because she's having a coughing fit, even after a doctor says she's fine but a woman with a stun gun AND a knife gets on the plane.

[pirtybirdy]

All this just to be "PC". If they allowed profiling, perhaps all this crap wouldn't need to happen. Well, just one of many of my opinions.....lol! ;-)

[nekokate]

Depends what you mean by "profiling". Unless the woman with the stun gun had a big beard and a towel on her head, "profiling" probably wouldn't have caught her, either.

*cynical mode*

[eefanincan]

The woman with the stun gun was actually an off duty flight attendant from what I heard on the news. Someone who should obviously know better.

[Lostinthestates]

This is a rather interesting story! Which reminds me of something that happened to me last year. I was on a flight from Washington DC to London and just before take off this guy next to me on the plane was on his mobile even after several announcements to turn all electronic equipment off. The chap on the other side of him told him several times to please finally switch his phone off as it will interfer with the plane's instruments, with me supporting this notion. As the guy just continued to talk on his phone the other chap started to get quite pissed off and started calling him slightly offensive names witch did lead to this guy hanging up but also at the same time becoming extremly threatening, loud and obnoxious.
After threatening to break his chaw and rearrange his face a stewardess which had been called 5 minutes earlier finally turned up - but only to run to the pilot to tell him what was happening. It all ended up with us returning to the gate and both the guys being taken of the flight.
I couldn't believe that the chap who had asked the guy to switch the phone off also had to leave the plane. I was just glad I had not got involved more in the arguement as I might have been pulled off the plane too.
Anyways, after all this rambling on - I do think that flight attendance just have no clue what is actually right or wrong and what justifies people being pulled off planes - just like the young girl!

[Skylace]

[eefanincan]

[pirtybirdy]

Well, one good thing came out of all of this........Lesson learned: Always bring cough drops on a flight when you have a cold, and talk nicely to arseholes who don't follow the rules on an airplane....lol!

[eefanincan]

[IRiSHMaFIA]

[Kezza]

The TSA is one F***upped institution -- trust me, I work, erm "know 'people' who work," for the government.

[Skylace]

[Skylace]