A JetBlue flight crew barred a 3-year-old girl from using the bathroom when their flight was delayed on the tarmac — leaving her to wet her seat, a Massachusetts mom alleges.
Jennifer Deveraux and her two daughters were aboard JetBlue Flight 518 from New York to Boston when the incident occurred Monday, CBS Boston first reported. Thirty minutes into the flight's delay, her daughter, Summers, needed to use a toilet.
But a flight attendant forced the girl to stay seated, Deveraux said.
When she couldn't use the bathroom, Deveraux's daughter urinated on herself. The mom said she tried to get up — this time to clean up after her daughter — but the same flight attendant yelled at her again.
“It wasn’t about bad customer service at that point, it was about bad human decency. My daughter was sitting in a pool of urine and I couldn’t do anything about it,” the mother told CBS Boston. “And as a mom, it just broke my heart.”
After Deveraux tried to plead her case, she said, the attendant reported the incident to the pilot, who redirected the plane toward the gate for a non-compliant passenger to be brought to security.
An off-duty pilot sitting near the Deveraux family defended the mother, and the crew ultimately allowed her to remain on board.
Deveraux wrote JetBlue a complaint letter about the altercation. A spokesperson said in a statement that the company would look into the situation and reach out to Deveraux.
Following the incident, at least one person questioned the airline's actions via Twitter. JetBlue responded in a tweet, saying that FAA regulations prevented the crew from allowing Deveraux to use the bathroom.