Speaker Gets to Point on Obstacles for Disabled Before He Gets to Speech

Rick Douglas did not have to cast far for an example to use in his Saturday night speech, celebrating the third anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act, on challenges still facing the disabled.

To get to the speech in Allentown, Pa., the executive director of the President’s Committee on Employment of People With Disabilities had to drag himself up five steps and crawl onto a United Express airplane at Dulles International Airport as passengers and airline personnel watched.

“It was humiliating. My clothes are covered with aviation fuel and oil,” Douglas said in a telephone interview from Allentown on Sunday.

Douglas, 50, who has multiple sclerosis, said United Express violated federal law requiring equal access to public transportation for disabled people. The incident is an example of how airline staffs have not been properly briefed on the laws, he said.

A United Express airline spokesman, Barron Beneski, said airline personnel had followed its own rules and those of the Federal Aviation Administration in making Douglas board unassisted. The 19-seat commuter plane had no flight attendant, and in case of emergency, passengers must be able to get out on their own, Beneski said.