Suit Charges United Airlines Misplaced Girl

Parents of an 8-year-old Huntington Beach girl sued United Airlines on Tuesday, charging that the airline misplaced their daughter a year ago by putting her on a flight from San Francisco to New York instead of to Orange County.

Erin Nicole Danskin, then 7, was traveling unaccompanied on June 29, 1992. Instead of being put aboard United’s Flight 91 to John Wayne Airport, as her ticket indicated, the suit charges that the girl was put on United’s flight 10 to New York and not returned to California until the next day.

Because United “negligently failed to follow their own detailed written procedures for transporting unaccompanied minors,” the suit charges that Erin and her parents, Robert Daniel Danskin and Jannon Lee Danskin, all suffered “serious and permanent emotional and mental” damage.

Jannon Danskin declined to comment on the suit.

A corporate spokesman for United Airlines also declined comment Tuesday.

However, a reservations agent said that normal procedures for unaccompanied minors under the age of 8 require that they travel only on a direct flight, with no connections, and that they may not take the last flight of the day from the airport. United requires the name of the person bringing them to the airport and of the person picking them up, both filed before the child arrives at the airport. Upon arrival, a second set of forms, including the same information, is filled out.

Minors are then left near the gate desk, the service representative said, where personnel can observe them. Minors, who hold their own tickets, are then boarded before other passengers.

At the age of 8 and older, minors can take connecting flights, and there is a $25 fee for escorting the child from one flight to another.