Meet 18-month-old Riyanna. Although she can't speak in full sentences, the toddler somehow managed to get on a watch list, prompting authorities to remove her and her parents from a Jet Blue flight in Fort Lauderdale, the New York Daily Newsreported Thursday.
According to the girl's mother, a JetBlue employee approached them and asked them to get off the plane.
“I said, ‘for what?’” Riyanna’s mother told TV station WPBF.
"Well it’s not you or your husband," the employee reportedly said. "Your daughter was flagged as a no fly."
"It's absurd," the father said. "It made no sense. Why would an 18-month-old child be on a no-fly list?"
The parents did not wish to be identified for fear of repercussions, the Daily News reported, adding that they are both of Middle Eastern descent, and the mother wears a head scarf. According to one account, the family was born and raised in New Jersey, the flight's destination.
After speaking with the TSA and being forced to wait a half hour, the family was granted permission to board the aircraft, but refused and left the airport instead. According to the family, no one apologized for the incident.
“We were put on display like a circus act because my wife wears a hijab,” the father said.
"Riyanna’s father said he intends to retain an attorney to pursue the matter further," John Hayward wrote at Human Events.
According to a statement from JetBlue, “several customers were flagged in the system as being on TSA’s No Fly list.”
Both JetBlue and the TSA are blaming each other for the mix-up.
WPBF says that JetBlue told them "this was an issue with the Transportation Safety Administration," and said both it and the TSA were investigating the matter, but the TSA disagreed, saying it was an airline issue.
"The TSA also said that since Riyanna and her parents were issued boarding passes, that means they had been cleared by the TSA and were definitely not on the no-fly list," WPBF added. More
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