The Fur Is Flying Over Incident on Airplane
Some say the case of Marcelle Becker and her late dog, Dom Perignon, is a moving story of an animal lover’s last stand. Others contend it is a cautionary tale about what happens when snooty first-class passengers push flight attendants too far.
But either way, the basic, bizarre facts of the 1 1/2-year feud, known officially as Becker vs. American Airlines, are essentially agreed upon by all.
On July 6, 1995, a well-off Westside widow and her beloved purebred Maltese boarded a flight from New York to Los Angeles International Airport. By the time it was over, the dog had escaped from its Louis Vuitton carrier and the pilot had tied up the widow with the dog’s leash.
On Monday, Becker’s civil suit against the airline was set for trial Aug. 5 in Santa Monica. It promises to be anything but dog bites man.
“What they did to me should not happen even to my enemies,” the Casablanca-born Becker said Monday, dragging on a cigarette after court in her plush high-rise condominium overlooking Wilshire Boulevard. “I was screaming for help.”
Tina Mangarpan, the attorney representing American Airlines, declined to comment on the case, but court documents indicate that airline officials share the widow’s disdain.
“If I have Ms. Becker on future American Airlines flights,” wrote flight attendant Mat M. Simoes in a report filed after the incident, “I will refuse to work the flight.”
At issue is an extreme version of one of those in-flight eruptions that occur occasionally, especially on long flights.
According to court documents, this one happened to be Flight 19 from JFK to LAX, and the chief participants happened to be Becker, widow of the insurance magnate Martin Becker, American Airlines Capt. Edwin L. Frost, and Becker’s fluffy eight-pound dog.
As Becker tells it in French-accented English, little Dom Perignon had traveled the world with her for years, and she had brought him along for comfort and company on the 1995 trip to New York. This trip, she said, was especially poignant, since it marked her first real effort to step back into society after her husband’s death in 1992.
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Becker said she was weary when she and Dom boarded their flight, settling into first class, where she had purchased the Maltese a window seat. Her plan, she said, was to travel as they had always traveled, with him in his little brown-and-gold pet carrier, stowed under the seat during takeoff and landing, as permitted by airline regulations.
But no sooner had she boarded, she said, than the run-ins with the flight attendants began. First, she said, a stewardess “rudely and abruptly” told her that the dolly she used to transport the carrier could not be stored in her usual spot, behind the last seat of the first-class cabin.
Then, she said, another attendant “screamed” at her because she momentarily sat the dog carrier on the seat next to her while storing her belongings, and then finished the exchange by kicking the soft-sided carrier under the seat.
Shaken, she said, she waited until takeoff, then moved her crying pet out from under her seat to a spot next to the window, ordered a screwdriver and a glass of water, and waited for lunch. After lunch, she took a sleeping pill with some red wine and dozed off, only to be awakened by another stewardess “violently shaking her shoulders,” and shouting that her dog had escaped.
In the reports of airline officials, filed in court records, the flight attendants and Frost had a different take on the incident.
In one report, flight attendant Simoes said Becker was so enraged at being told to stow her pet that by the time Simoes came around to serve the complimentary champagne, Becker was yelling, “Get away from me, all of you are animal-haters.”
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Simoes stated that the widow was told that if she didn’t stop shouting, her behavior would be reported to the captain.
“---- the captain,” Becker allegedly replied.
A second report, filed by Frost, indicated that after stewardesses had warned Becker about the rules regarding pets in flight, a flight attendant came to the cockpit to inform him that “the passenger was out of control,” and “the dog was out of its kennel, threatening to bite.”
Becker contends that when she awoke, little Dom was sitting mildly in the aisle, wagging his tail, having gotten out because of a faulty lock.
But both sides acknowledge that that was when things began to escalate.
The captain said he went into the first-class cabin hoping to calm things but found Becker so hostile that he ended up threatening to physically restrain her or “land at the nearest airport.”
When the widow dared him to land, Frost decided to use the dog’s leash to tie Becker’s hands behind her back.
It was tough, the report said, because Becker by this time had backed up against the bulkhead. With the aid of another airline employee who happened to be on board, Frost wrote, he “lifted the passenger up onto the adjacent seat and proceeded to physically restrain her.”
Twice, the report said, she slipped her bindings and began to scream. The captain reported that each time he restrained her, he had stewardesses verify that her bindings weren’t overly tight; Becker says he roughed her up so badly that she was bruised from head to toe, had an earring ripped from one ear and broke several nails.
Moreover, Becker said, the incident so traumatized Dom Perignon that he developed an enlarged heart and back injuries afterward, and died of his injuries two months ago.
Becker was not criminally charged after the incident, but she has decided to let her lawyers bite back. Her civil suit charges assault, battery, violation of civil rights and cruelty to animals.
“I’ll let the people decide,” she said.
