Opinion ID: 203101
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Removal from Flight

Text: The Captain of AA Flight 2237 has worked for AA since 1986, starting as a flight engineer; in 1988, he became an FAA-designated instructor; around 1989, he was promoted to co-pilot; and in 1996, he was promoted to the position of Captain. He testified that he has flown hundreds of flights, and that he had had security problems at Logan Airport before and dealt with them in the same way as he dealt with the situation at issue here. Around 6:00am on December 28, 2003, approximately 35 minutes prior to the scheduled departure, the Captain of Flight 2237 was walking to the departure gate. A man with a ponytail approached the Captain and asked him if he was the Captain for the Fort Lauderdale flight. The Captain initially thought that the passenger was reporting a problem and so he responded that he was the Captain for the flight. The passenger said, Good. I'm going with you. We're going to have a good day today. The passenger then immediately left the area; the Captain continued to the gate. The Captain was greatly concerned about this exchange: he testified at trial that it [was] probably one of the most odd exchanges that I've ever had with anyone in my entire career, and it concerned me greatly. After the passengers boarded, the Captain, in the cockpit, spoke by telephone with Flight Attendant Two in the rear of the plane. [1] He asked her to check on the location of the man with the ponytail and whether she had any other concerns that she could see with this particular passenger. The Captain agreed at trial that he must have described the man to her but did not recall the exact description. [The flight attendants described the man with the ponytail as having a heavy accent.] Flight Attendant Two checked and returned to the Captain with information that the man with the ponytail was sitting with two other men in Row 20, an emergency exit row. The plaintiff, seated by the window, was one of those men. The location of the man with the ponytail in an exit row concerned the Captain. The emergency exit row location is important to safety because the exit rows are critical if the aircraft needs to be evacuated. Passengers sitting in the exit rows need to meet specific regulatory criteria, 14 C.F.R. § 121.585(b), which among other things require them to follow the instructions of crew-members and assist other passengers in evacuating the aircraft. Flight Attendant Two told the Captain that she perceived the man in the ponytail was traveling with the two other men in the row, one of whom was the plaintiff. [2] Regardless, the Captain said it was not important from his perspective whether or not the three men were traveling together: [I]f people are trying to harm the aircraft or anyone on board, they might be traveling together, they might not be traveling together. Flight Attendant Two also expressed her concerns to the Captain about the plaintiff. She described an incident she had with the plaintiff in the terminal. She told the Captain that this passenger, the plaintiff, had been hostile to her. [3] Specifically, she reported to the Captain that prior to boarding she had been approached by the plaintiff in the gate area. He was very hostile and extremely insistent that his seat be switched to an exit row seat. She explained to the plaintiff that she was a flight attendant and not a gate agent and asked him to take a seat until someone could help him. She said that the plaintiff continued to stare at her and sat down right close to the gate. . . . [T]he entire time that she worked at the gate he was just sitting there staring at her, making her extremely uncomfortable. [4] She also told the Captain that this passenger boarded the plane into his coach class seat when only the first class passengers were called to board, and that the plaintiff immediately went to the bathroom for an extended period of time. The Captain was concerned about the plaintiff's early use of the lavatory because it is a very insecure area in which a bomb may have been placed. He requested the co-pilot on the flight check the lavatory. The co-pilot did so and found nothing. Flight Attendant Four went to the Captain [5] with her independent concerns about the three men in Row 20. She reported to the Captain that during (and after) the safety briefing for those seated in exit rows, two of the three passengers in Row 20 were acting very bizarrely and asking questions such as Is this how you want me to do it? She reported that after the briefing, one of the three passengers in Row 20 had pressed the flight attendant call light. Although Flight Attendant Four was upset by their earlier behavior, she went to answer the call light. The two men started in again, laughing, and one asked her, Where do you want me to put the door? She testified that no one acts like this during an exit row briefing. This is a serious safety briefing. She observed the plaintiff, who was leaning forward and watching the other two passengers: [H]e wasn't laughing outright but he had this smile on his face like he found it very amusing. She added, I don't think the other passengers [on the plane] found it amusing when we're talking about a safety issue. She went up front to the cockpit to report this to the Captain because the behavior was so unusual and . . . somewhat frightening. Flight Attendant Four was anxious and disturbed about what was happening. Her concerns went to all three men in the row. She thought they were together because the plaintiff had specifically requested the seat he occupied and because, she thought, he would more likely find their conduct to be amusing (as he appeared to do) and not take their conduct seriously if the three were friends. Flight Attendant One also had observed that when the man with the ponytail boarded the plane, he had looked into the cockpit and asked the Captain, Are you our Captain? Both the Captain and Flight Attendant One thought this strange. The Captain thought it strange because he had already spoken with this man in the terminal and confirmed he was the Captain. Flight Attendant One thought it strange because it was obvious that he was the Captain given his location right next to the cockpit door. In addition, Flight Attendant Two told the Captain of separate concerns that the plaintiff had an obvious interest in flight attendant duties; someone might call it staring. This worried the Captain, as undue interest from a passenger in the flight attendants' conduct can trigger a safety concern. As a result of all of these events, the Captain convened a meeting of the flight crew on board the aircraft to discuss everyone's concerns and determine which course of actioneither leaving as scheduled or delaying the flight to investigate furtherwas the most appropriate. The plane had been boarded by then and the jetbridge had been removed. At this point, Flight Attendant Two reported to the Captain that other passengers had expressed their discomfort with the man with the ponytail and with comments he and others in Row 20 had made, which included wishing other passengers Happy New Year and acting in a very boisterous manner. Flight Attendant Two also reported that the passengers in Row 20 now seemed to be feigning sleep; she thought the sleep was feigned given that these passengers had shortly before been boisterous and making lively comments. The Captain did not question the information he received from Flight Attendant Two, who was a thirty-seven-year veteran with a stellar reputation. In the meeting the Captain had convened, the flight attendants said they were not comfortable with the flight going ahead. The Captain then decided that based on his own observations and the crew's observations, including the separate information from the three flight attendants, there was adequate reason to investigate the security concerns in more detail, even if this meant delaying the takeoff of a fully boarded plane. Thus, the Captain made the first decision not to depart the gate, but to investigate further. The Captain called the gate agent and had the jetbridge brought back to the plane. The Captain then called the ground security coordinator and notified him of the concerns he and all of the flight attendants had with the three passengers. The gate agent and the ground security coordinator both came aboard the aircraft, and the Captain further discussed the security concerns with them. The second decision made was to remove the three men from the plane for further questioning by appropriate authorities. At the Captain's request, the three men were removed from the aircraft for further questioning because of the number of concerns, not just [Flight Attendant Two's] concerns. When the three passengers were removed from the plane, they were asked to take their carry-on bags with them. The Captain did not interview the three passengers himself, as he was busy with the flight and that was not his responsibility. The Captain then called company systems operations control in Dallas both to give them a full report on the security issues and to notify them that the flight would not be departing on time. In addition, the Captain had a ten-minute conversation with his superior, an off-site chief pilot on duty, who offered to come from home to the airport and help. The Captain said he would handle it on his own. The Captain testified his decision not to takeoff and to remove the three men in Row 20 from the plane for questioning was based on his odd experience with the man with the ponytail, the information and concerns about all three passengers in the exit row expressed by all three flight attendants, as well as the fact that the flight attendants were uncomfortable with the flight departing. The Captain was particularly concerned with the report of Flight Attendant Two that both the plaintiff and the man with the ponytail seemed extremely interested in the duties of two of the flight attendants. After the three men were removed for questioning by the State Police in a separate location in the terminal, a passenger on the plane reported that one of the three men in Row 20 had box cutters confiscated from him at the Transportation and Security Administration (TSA) security checkpoint. Once he heard the report, the Captain questioned the passenger himself. The Captain then reported it personally to the head of TSA at Logan and told him that if box cutters had been taken from one of my passengers on board my aircraft, that . . . aircraft was not going to fly the entire day no matter what was checked. The head of TSA did research and reported back to the Captain that box cutters had been taken from a passenger on a different flight that morning. Nonetheless, the Captain testified, That event, in and of itself, concerned me greatly. At some point, Flight Attendant Four reported to the Captain that we had more than one passenger, who were not traveling together, who had concerns about passengers in the exit row; passengers who were becoming very nervous. The Captain testified, And I remember one woman, with two small children, I believe, and she was getting very nervous to the point where I thought she might not go with us. The Captain then made a third decision, to empty the aircraft of all passengers, all carry-on belongings, and all cargo, and have the aircraft searched with dogs. He did so because of the box cutter concern, and because the Captain recognized that tension levels were rising among the other 126 passengers, and after consulting with three Massachusetts State Police officers and the TSA. The Captain testified that it was an extremely difficult decision to empty the aircraft of passengers and baggage. He knew it meant inconvenience to over 100 people, that it would cost AA a great deal of money, and that he and his flight crew would be late getting back to their families. Indeed, he met some resistance from AA employees to unloading the bags, because it is quite a project. The Captain told them, [T]hat's just what we're going to have to do. We have to make sure this aircraft is safe to depart. This process took three hours. The three men from Row 20 had been moved to a secured location away from the gate and apart from the other passengers and were questioned by one of the State Police troopers. The Captain was told that the State Police, in questioning the three men, had become concerned about the passport of one of the men. While the search of the plane was conducted, the passengers were kept in a secured area. During this period, the flight attendants became even more concerned. The flight attendants informed the Captain that they elected not to continue the trip. [6] Also during this period, the State Police troopers conducted lengthy interviews with passengers who had observed what the Captain called the suspicious behavior of the three men. The Captain had lengthy and ongoing discussions with local AA management, the State Police, TSA management, and air marshals. From the Captain's perspective, it was the State Police who decided that the three men would not travel that day on the flight. During his conversations with the sky marshals service, systems operations control, and the chief pilot on duty, a state police officer approached me and told me, point blank, `These three gentlemen are not traveling with you today. It's out of your hands.' The Captain accepted this decision. After this, the Captain made the decision that the flight would continue on to Fort Lauderdale after all the passengers other than the three men had been re-screened by security, and the re-screened bags reloaded. The original flight attendants refused to continue the trip. They were replaced by another three attendants from a reserve crew. The flight departed approximately three hours late at 9:33am. The captain informed the pertinent AA personnel of this. The flight went without the plaintiff or the other two men. Within twenty-four hours of the situation, the Captain, as is standard AA practice, prepared a report, which he filed with the company. Pertinently, the Captain's concerns about the three men had not abated. In fact, in his report, the Captain noted: I would like to get the status of the passengers who we did not transport. Whether they took a later flight, no flight, etc. I would like to know whether the authorities found anything that pertains to our security concerns. And, will passengers be allowed to fly AA again if no `problems' were found? That report, in evidence, was consistent with his testimony. At no time, the Captain testified, did he ever see the plaintiff, nor was he aware of the plaintiff's appearance. The plaintiff was seated in 20F, a window seat which is not visible to the Captain from the front of the plane. [7] The Captain flatly denied that the plaintiff's ethnic appearance had anything to do with his decision to remove plaintiff from the flight: I'm emphatic about it, one, because I had never seen Mr. Cerqueira up to that point; two, I had a number of concerns from three separate employees, and more than one passenger not traveling together. I didn't have one passenger with concerns, I had more than one passenger with concerns. So I have all of the people working for me concerned for numerous reasons, and I have some of my passengers concerned. I would have been derelict in my duty to ignore those concerns and depart with that flight. I fly hundred of flights. I fly the equivalent of a flight every day. I fly thousands of passengersall races, all religionsevery day. I've had other security problems at Logan Airport and they're dealt with the same way. I would do everything the same way. The first time the Captain ever saw the plaintiff was at trial.