A scary incident and a sad story of how a Maui vacation ended very badly for a family that included a teenager reported to have Autism, as well as a full flight of passengers returning to the mainland. In the disturbance seen in the video below, the 13-year-old boy tried to kick out the plane’s window next to his seat. He then became combative with his mother.
Other passengers restrained the boy. He was later duck-taped to his seat for the duration of the flight. The captain turned the plane back to Hawaii, where it landed safely in Honolulu. The boy was then taken into custody.
As seen below, AA flight 212 departed Maui at 12:30 pm yesterday, then landed in Honolulu just over three hours later. That flight did not continue to the mainland, but passengers were accommodated on other flights.
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Why in the world would a 13 year old with autism be “taken into custody”??? An unfortunate event but not a “crime” with intent. Mental health care in this country is a disgrace.
On a trip home from attending funerals on the mainland in July, the Maui terminal was packed, many not wearing masks, but one young man caught our eyes as he was pacing, maskless. Sure enough our daughter saw him playing with one of the exit doors and alerted the staff, who calmed him down and monitored him until we landed safely on Kauai [though fully vaccinated we then put ourselves into voluntary quarantine for 2 weeks and suffered no ill effects from our trip]. [Security on Maui ignored those not wearing masks.]
I have a child on the spectrum. I feel for both sides on this. Scary to the passengers and really hard for the child and family. The duct tape seems a little extreme given it was a 13 year old but I’m guessing we haven’t heard the entire situation here.