'Bye, Bye' Baby: Mother, Son Booted From Plane

July 13, 2007 — -- A mother and her son were booted off a plane after a flight attendant became upset when the 19-month-old kept saying "Bye, bye plane" as the aircraft prepared for liftoff.

Kate Penland and her son, Garren, thought they were finally homebound when they boarded a Continental ExpressJet flight from Houston to Atlanta after an 11-hour delay at Bush Intercontinental Airport last month.

As an attendant reviewed the flight safety instructions, Garren began to bid Houston adieu.

"There was a plane next to us, and I pointed it out to Garren, and he started saying 'Bye, bye plane,' over and over," Penland said.

Distracted and upset by the boy's words, the flight attendant went over to Penland after completing her safety demonstration.

"She leaned over the gentleman who was sitting next to me, and she said, 'OK, it's not funny anymore. You need to shut your baby up," Penland said.

Penland said she told the flight attendant that she expected her child to fall asleep momentarily.

"'It doesn't matter. Regardless, I don't want to hear it,'" Penland said the flight attendant told her.

"'It's called Baby Benadryl,'" Penland said the attendant told her, suggesting she give her child allergy medication to help him fall asleep fast.

"I said, 'Well, I'm not going to drug my child so you have a pleasant flight,'" Penland said.

The discussion continued and very quickly what started as an unpleasant flight for Penland and Garren became no flight at all.

The flight attendant told the captain that Penland had threatened her, and the captain agreed to taxi the plane back to the gate, where mother and child were told to disembark.

Other passengers who witnessed the argument were stunned, and came to Penland's defense.

Fellow passenger Sandy Taylor said the flight attendant came back and "in a real arrogant way she says, 'We're going back to the gate.'"

Stacey Watts said the attendant told Penland, "If you do not leave the aircraft voluntarily — the authorities have been called — the police will come and remove you from the plane."

By the time the plane had taxied to the gate, Garren was fast asleep, Penland said.

They were still forced off the plane, and Penland and Garren were left to fend for themselves and find a place to sleep.

ExpressJet spokeswoman Kristy Nicholas said that if a passenger is understood to be compromising the safety of passengers or crew, or if a passenger undermines a crew member's "authority as the person responsible for safety" on board, they may be removed from the aircraft.

But Penland denied that she had ever threatened the flight attendant or that she or Garren had posed a threat to the security or comfort of the flight.

"It was embarrassing," said Penland, who was not arrested nor ticketed after the incident, to ABC13-TV in Houston. "I felt helpless."

The airline later said in a statement to "Good Morning America": "Customer service and safety are our top priorities and we take any complaints about these issues seriously."