3 Smokers File $10-Million Suit Over Altercation on TWA Flight

Three Southland residents who were taken into custody after an altercation aboard a TWA jetliner that erupted when passengers ignored the crew’s orders to put out their cigarettes have filed a $10-million false-arrest suit against the airline, court records revealed Friday. James and Heather Kell of Torrance and Peter Priestly of Inglewood said in their Torrance Superior Court suit that they suffered “great physical, mental, and emotional nervous pain, anguish and suffering” as a result of the “despicable conduct” of Trans World Airlines.

The Kells--who conceded that they smoked on the flight after being ordered not to do so--said a flight attendant “assaulted” Heather Kell, “grabbing, lunging and striking” her “in a rude and offensive manner” when she continued to smoke.

No Charges Filed

The Kells, Priestly and an unidentified man were released a few hours after their arrests at Los Angeles International Airport, and no charges were filed against them. But James Kell, the 46-year-old manager of an auto dealership in Orange County, said he decided to proceed with a suit “because the whole thing made me so damned mad.”

Spokesmen for the airline were not available for comment Friday.

The fracas aboard the big jet occurred before new federal regulations banning smoking on all flights of under two hours, but since the flight from Boston to Los Angeles took considerably longer than that--about six hours--the new smoking restrictions would not have applied anyway.

High Number of Nonsmokers

TWA spokesman Bob Blattner said at the time that the airline announced the smoking ban throughout the business and coach sections of Flight 853 on Dec. 30 because of an unusually high number of requests for nonsmoking seats.

Blattner explained that under continuing Federal Aviation Administration rules, “Whenever a nonsmoker requests a nonsmoking seat, he or she must be accommodated, and we must expand the nonsmoking section.”

Blattner said the announcement was made before the Lockheed L-1011 jumbo jet pulled away from the gate at Boston, in plenty of time for anyone who objected to the ban to get off the plane.

But the Kells, Priestly and some other passengers who talked with The Times said the announcement was not made until the plane was taxiing onto the runway for takeoff.

“There were probably 30 or 40 smokers with us, and they came unglued,” James Kell said. “We bought those tickets months before. Our boarding passes clearly said ‘Smoking.’ Everyone said, ‘This is B.S.’ ”

Kell said that after the plane took off, “everybody lit up,” and a few minutes later a stewardess walked back to where his family was sitting, “physically grabbed my wife’s left arm and said, ‘Gimme that cigarette.’ ”

Kell said he, his wife or Priestly did not assault the stewardess in any way.

Different Account

The day after the incident, TWA’s Blattner gave a somewhat different account of what happened.

Blattner said that after the stewardess--who has been identified only as “Cindy”--asked the passengers to put out their cigarettes, “there were verbal exchanges, booing, and it got enough into physical pushing and shoving on a flight attendant.”

At that point, the flight attendant called for the captain. “He came back, realized he was in a pretty volatile situation, so he called ahead and asked that the police be waiting when he landed.”

About 20 passengers were detained by authorities and released after a few minutes.

But, a moment after being released, Kell said the fight attendant walked by and pointed him out again. This time, he said, he, his family and Priestly and the other man were escorted to a police station at the airport, where they were questioned for about half an hour.

All were released without booking.