79-Year-Old Disabled Passenger Says American Airlines Crew Burst Into Lavatory, Called Police On Him Over Made Up Allegation

American Airlines flight attendants on a recent flight from Philadelphia to Phoenix abused the unprecedented power they have acquired in the years after the 9/11 attacks to victimize a disabled 79-year-old passenger simply because he was clearly of South Asian descent.

That’s the shocking allegation made in a newly filed lawsuit against the airline by Ali Warisuzzaman, a US citizen of more than 40 years, who is suing for $1 million in damages for discrimination and defamation.

Ali traveled with American Airlines on October 3 aboard flight AA-765 to visit family members in Arizona, but he was left humiliated by the flight attendants who accused him of smoking in a lavatory and then called the police on him when he asked to speak to the Captain.

Sitting towards the back of the aircraft, Ali was initially ignored by the flight attendant completing the beverage service despite the fact that he was awake and reading a book with the reading light switched on above his seat in the otherwise dimly lit cabin.

Did a coffee request lead to Ali being targeted?

Ali managed to get the attention of another crew member, who fetched him a cup of coffee and some cookies. During this interaction, Ali asked the other crew member why the first flight attendant had seemingly ignored him.

It would be this interaction that apparently led to much more friction between Ali and the first flight attendant.

While Ali noticed the flight attendant giving him “dirty looks” when he passed by, the complaint against American Airlines says most of the flight passed by without incident – that is, however, until Ali went to use the restroom.

Accused of smoking in the bathroom

Within moments of sitting on the toilet, Ali heard loud banging on the bathroom door and a voice from outside yelling, “Are you smoking?”

As a non-smoker, Ali didn’t know what was going on. He wondered whether there might be a fire. The voice from outside exclaimed that there was smoke coming out from under the bathroom door.

Ali looked around for evidence of smoke and then, without warning, the crew member opened the bathroom door from the outside and repeatedly demanded that Ali get out.

In the midst of going to the toilet, Ali couldn’t just leave the bathroom, especially as he suffers from Stage 4 chronic kidney disease, which makes it more difficult for him to go to the toilet.

Desperate to maintain his privacy, Ali managed to push the bathroom door shut before a second fight attendant swung the door open and challenged him for smoking.

Passenger barges in on Ali in the bathroom

The flight attendant then closed the door, before, bizarrely, a passenger then opened the door and also berated Ali for smoking in the bathroom.

Shaken and distressed, Ali left the bathroom and told the flight attendants to smell his clothing for evidence of cigarette smoke to prove he had not been smoking.

Ali asked to speak to a supervisor, but when he learned that American Airlines doesn’t have in-flight supervisors on domestic flights, he asked if he could talk to the Captain.

The lawsuit alleges that the flight attendants conjured up the allegation of Ali smoking in the lavatory as a way of humiliating him based on nothing more than racial animus. They then used this as a pretext to have law enforcement waiting to meet the aircraft on arrival in Phoenix.

Airline uses airport police as its ‘personal security force’

Given American’s sheer scale of operation at Phoenix Sky Harbor, Ali believes this gives the airline an enormous amount of influence over the local police department, using it as if it were its “personal security force.”

The near octogenarian was surrounded by up to 10 heavily armed police on arrival in Phoenix and immediately interrogated over allegations he had been smoking in the lavatory. Passengers stared and looked on as Ali was questioned before being released without charge.

Ali claims that the allegations made by the flight crew against him ended up being so “frivolous” that the Phoenix Police Department is now trying to block access to the official report, as well as body cam footage of his detention.

The lawsuit describes American Airlines as the “poster boy” for crew members’ misconduct against passengers, often for no reason other than the color of their skin.

Matt’s take

There are clearly going to be two sides to this story, but there’s no doubt that American Airlines has a documented problem with crew members who sometimes take a very heavy-handed approach to enforcing rules.

While smoking in an airplane lavatory can be dangerous and should be investigated, there are ways of going about this that don’t require the full force of the law being swung down on an elderly passenger.

In this case, did the lavatory smoke detector activate? That might give cause for the flight attendants to open the door without warning to check that there wasn’t any smoke or fire.

After opening the door, was there any smell of cigarette smoke or evidence of ash or a cigarette butt in the bathroom trash can? Did other passengers notice anything suspicious or out of the ordinary? Had the passenger been making frequent trips to the bathroom?

In the absence of hard evidence of smoking in the bathroom, what is the point in even calling law enforcement to meet the aircraft? Unless, of course, the purpose is the embarrass the passenger?