Jun 15, 2009 7:13 pm US/Eastern
Airline Loses, Finds Little Girl After Mix-Up
Girl Was Supposed To Arrive In Cleveland, Was Found in Newark
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
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Logan Airport control tower (File Image)
AP
Imagine putting your child on a plane to visit her grandparents. The plane lands and the grandparents are waiting, but your child is nowhere to be found.
That just happened to Jonathan Kamens, who put his 10-year-old daughter, Miriam, on a flight to Cleveland Sunday morning.
DROPPED OFF BY DAD
As required by the airline, Kamens walked his daughter through airport security to the gate area, spoke to the agents and put his daughter in their care when it came time to board the plane.
"They seemed like they knew what they were doing. The paperwork is very specific," Kamens said.
He noted it specified her flight number, destination and phone numbers and addresses for him and his in-laws, who would meet Miriam at the airport in Cleveland.
Kamens watched airline personnel take his daughter and the paperwork with her destination and flight number onto a plane. He assumed everything was fine.
'WHERE IS SHE?'
"I had no inkling anything was wrong until my father-in-law called me and said, 'where is she?'"
Miriam, it turns out, was in Newark. The airline staff put her on the wrong plane and neither flight crew noticed.
A Continental Airline spokesperson issued this statement:
"We take very seriously our responsibility to care for unaccompanied minors on our flights. In this case, there were two flights departing simultaneously from a single doorway and miscommunication among staff members resulted in the child being boarded on the wrong aircraft.
"We are truly sorry for this error and have apologized to the family. The child was supervised throughout the entire process and was rebooked and routed to the proper destination on the same day. "
'EVAPORATED INTO THIN AIR'
However, for 45 minutes no one at the airline could tell Kamens where his daughter was.
"She's off on her trip to visit her grandparents, and then she's gone, evaporated into thin air and that's scary," said Kamens. "The number of people who must have failed to do what they're supposed to do is mindboggling."
Kamens says it was he who suggested the airline check in Newark, because he remembered another plane on the tarmac was going to Newark.
Miriam arrived in Cleveland a few hours behind schedule. Kamens said she seemed no worse for the wear, but he won't forget the panic anytime soon.
"I'm sure there are rules that the flight crew is supposed to verify the number of people on the plane matches the number of people on the manifest."
If there are, Continental Airlines was unable to explain them to WBZ. Our request for that information went unanswered.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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