An elderly JetBlue passenger claims she was accosted during flight while trying to throw out a teacup and spoon.
Angela Siddell, 74, flew from JFK Airport in New York City to Costa Rica on Oct. 31 to celebrate her recent retirement, according to a lawsuit reviewed by the Daily Beast. The grandmother, who hails from Jersey in the United Kingdom, was allegedly left with a black eye and other bruises across her body after the flight.
Siddell had apparently thrown a full tea cup in the plane’s galley instead of a trash bin. The lawsuit claims that a female flight attendant addressed Siddell in “an unusually loud and verbally aggressive manner.”
The grandmother announced her intentions to send a written complaint to JetBlue about the ordeal. However, when she approached the flight attendant to get her name, the staffer refused. Other flight attendants apparently did not give Siddell the attendant’s information, nor the name of the captain.
She was also told that there was no complaint form nor paper on the aircraft for her to write the complaint by hand. Instead, Sidell wrote it on the back of a barf bag.
The elderly woman made another attempt to get the flight attendant’s name when a crew member allegedly grabbed her by the wrist and another cabin crew member “shoved her in the back with great force,” pushing her into a female crew member.
Siddell then was “shoved in the back” one more time which caused her head to “violently strike” a rear exit door.
The woman was then allegedly handcuffed by the flight crew before a male staffer “physically applied pressure” to her torso and caused her to have “extreme difficulty breathing,” per the Daily Beast.
Siddell alleges that she “sustained bodily injuries” including bruises and a black eye, and became “incapacitated from employment.” She also claims that she “suffered pain, suffering, and mental anguish” over the incident.
JetBlue has not responded to the accusations made by Siddell at publishing time.
