Ailing Dornan Didn’t Act Fast Enough to Suit Flight Attendant

Well, you succeeded in ruining my family’s Father’s Day with seven opinions regarding the abuse of my father aboard a United Airlines flight last April (“Readers Decry Dornan’s Actions on Plane,” June 16). These opinions were formulated based on inaccurate information by people who were not eyewitnesses and who, I suspect, do not like U.S. Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) to begin with.

Once again, The Times has used the opinion section to shape rather than state public opinion. Allow me to tell your readers the true story.

My father was traveling to Washington on the 11:30 p.m. flight on April 30 to attend a very important hearing regarding the Orange County monorail system. He was doing so against his family’s wishes, as he had undergone a complete hip replacement weeks earlier and had not walked more than 20 feet or so. But he felt this meeting was too important to miss.

After securing the last seat on this plane, he was taken there in a wheelchair. It then took him some time to get settled in his seat, as he was in pain. He had doctor’s orders to avoid sitting at a 90-degree angle because this could cause permanent damage. Afraid he would fall asleep, as it was now midnight and he was exhausted from three days of the flu, he politely asked two flight attendants if he could keep his seat back one notch. He was told, by both, that it was no problem.

Minutes before takeoff, an older, “experienced” flight attendant got 6 inches from my father’s face and ordered him, like he was a child, “Put your seat up now or I’ll taxi back to the gate and put you off my airplane.” Taken aback but trying to understand why she had exploded in his face, my father calmly told her that he had had a hip replacement and that the other flight attendants had said it was OK to keep his seat back one notch.

She said, “I don’t care what you have had. Put your seat up.” She was rude, and my father was calm and polite. The gentleman next to him has offered to give a sworn statement to that effect. The other passengers had no idea what was going on.

When my father asked to speak with her superior, she told him, “I am the superior,” and stormed off. She then convinced the pilot to return to the gate and got on the public-address system to announce that they were returning to let off a passenger. My father then said, “Hey, wait a minute! We can work this out. You can’t inconvenience all these people.” And he put up his seat.

After the plane returned to the gate, he hobbled off the aircraft on two crutches to a waiting wheelchair in the middle of the night. The bottom line is that a handicapped senior citizen (he never told her he was a U.S. congressman) was kicked off an airplane for not putting his seat up fast enough for an overtired (she was on the second leg of a trip from Hawaii), irritable flight attendant. What a disgrace!

And for the record, my father was pinching pennies by flying coach--not his money but yours, the taxpayers’. He flies coach 98% of the time so he can turn back congressional funds at the end of the year and save you money.

ROBIN DORNAN, San Juan Capistrano. We received 16 letters critical of Rep. Robert K. Dornan on this issue, one critical of the flight attendants who initially told him he could keep his seat reclined and three in support of him. We have published eight of the 17 critical letters and all three in support, including Dornan’s response.