A lawyer for a woman seen on video being dragged off a Southwest Airlines flight in Maryland said Wednesday she never claimed her allergy to dogs was life-threatening and that her eviction from the aircraft was motivated by anti-Muslim bias.
Forty-six-year-old Anila Daulatzai’s lawyer says she agreed with crew members that she’d be fine with the dogs on the cross-country flight as long as they sat far apart.
But she says other Southwest employees told her to leave the plane.
The airline says that it required Daulatzai to produce a medical certificate, without which it could deny her the right to stay on board.
Forty-six-year-old Anila Daulatzai (pictured) was removed from a Southwest Airlines flight last week after she complained about ‘life-threatening allergies’ to a passenger’s support dog
Video shows Daulatzai refusing to leave the plane on her own, prompting officers to pull and push her down the aisle
She then tells the officers that she ‘needs to close’ her pants. But she accuses one officer of ‘ripping’ them as he tried to escort her off the plane
But Daulatzai’s attorneys say that the airline never asked for a medical certificate, according to The Washington Post.
Instead, they say their client was ‘profiled, abused, interrogated, detained, and subjected to false reporting and the trauma of racist, vitriolic public shaming precisely because she is a woman, a person of color, and a Muslim.’
‘She survived sexism, racial profiling, and police brutality that fateful day,’ according to her attorneys at the Reston, Virginia law firm of Hall & Sethi.
‘Her mistreatment was particularly distressing because she is presently pregnant with her first child.’
In the video, one officer is then seen grabbing Daulatzai and pulling her away from her seat. Eventually, passengers on the plane turned on the officers, yelling at them for pushing her forward
Police were called and forcibly removed her. Other passengers on the flight to Los Angeles took video and posted it online.
A Southwest spokesman said she refused to leave, despite claiming a life-threatening pet allergy.
But her lawyers insist that Daulatzai told airline staff that she would be fine on the plane.
Nonetheless, officers from the Maryland Transportation Authority Police ‘pulled her from her seat by her belt loop’ and ‘dragged [her] through the aisle exposed with torn pants.’
Her lawyers say Daulatzai is pregnant and required medical treatment after the September 26 incident at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.
‘Daulatzai has also received hate mail, including racist messages and threats of further violence,’ her lawyers say.
‘There was an attempted break in into her home. She has since left her home, fearing for her safety.’
Flight 1525 was preparing to leave from Baltimore to head to Los Angeles on Tuesday night when the incident occurred.
The incident was recorded by Bill Dumas, and in the video the woman can be heard demanding the officers to let her go.
At the start of the video, the woman apologizes and says that her father is having surgery as the officers mover her forward.
‘What are you doing?’ she asks the officers as other passengers are heard telling the woman to leave the plane peacefully.
The woman then tells the officers that she ‘needs to close’ her pants. But she accuses one officer of ‘ripping’ them as he tried to escort her off the plane.
In the video, one officer is then seen grabbing the woman and pulling her away from her seat.
‘I will walk off! Don’t touch me!’ she yells as she clings to the back of her seat.
Eventually, passengers on the plane turned on the officers, yelling at them for pushing the woman forward.
After a few moments, Daulatzai turns around and tells the officers that she’s a professor, but the cops ignore her and move her forward toward the plane’s exit
‘She’s walking!’ one passenger is heard saying as the cop tries to push the woman down the aisle.
After a few moments, the woman turns around and tells the officers that she’s a professor, but the cops ignore her and move her forward toward the plane’s exit.
Southwest Airlines told DailyMail.com that the woman was asked to provide her medical certificate to prove the allergy, but she was unable to provide that document.
‘There was one emotional support animal and one pet onboard the aircraft. Our policy states that a Customer (without a medical certificate) may be denied boarding if they report a life-threatening allergic reaction and cannot travel safely with an animal onboard,’ a spokesperson for Southwest told DailyMail.com.
According to the airline, the flight crew ‘made repeated attempts to explain the situation to the Customer, however, she refused to deplane and law enforcement became involved’.
The Maryland Transportation Authority Police said in a statement that ‘[d]espite her clear attempt to resist a law enforcement officer, Ms. Daulatzai was professionally removed from the aircraft within the guidelines of the MDTA Police.
‘This remains an open case that will be handled in the appropriate venue, not through various media channels.’
MAJOR AIRLINE DEBACLES IN 2017
United Airlines
- The most notorious incident was when 69-year-old Dr David Dao was brutally taken off a an oversold Louisville-bound flight from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport in April.
United Airlines had the most incidents occur since April, from people being kicked off flights to a bunny dying
- At the end of April, a large rabbit named Simon died following a flight from London to Chicago.
- Henry Amador-Batten, a gay father flying to his North Carolina home in May, was accused by United flight attendants of inappropriately touching his son on the flight, setting off a police investigation.
- In July, the company told a woman, who had already boarded, that she had to give up the seat she paid for her two-year-old son to a standby passenger.
- Earlier in September, a man claimed United Airlines left his wheelchair-bound mother, 77, stranded at her gate for 12 hours after bumping her from a connecting flight.
Delta Air Lines
- In April, a Wisconsin man was removed from a Delta flight after using the bathroom shortly before takeoff. The man said he had to go and the plane wasn’t moving.
- Brian and Brittany Schear, along with their two toddlers, were kicked off a Delta flight in May so their seats could be given to waiting passengers.
American Airlines
- In April, the airline apologized to a female passenger and suspended an employee after a video showing an onboard clash over a baby stroller went viral.
Spirit Airlines
- In May, the airline canceled nine flights because the pilots did not show up to work, causing several passengers to swarm their Fort Lauderdale ticket counter in what they called a ‘near-riot’ at the time.