3-Year-Old Kicked Off Flight After Refusing To Wear Seatbelt

If you don’t buckle up, you don’t fly. A 3-year-old boy was kicked off of an Alaska Airlines flight after he refused to put on his seat belt.

The Associated Press reports that the Alaska Airlines Flight was sitting on the runway at the Sea-Tac Airport on Saturday when flight attendants made their pre-board checks. The flight attendants noticed that the 3-year-old wasn’t wearing his seat belt.

When the boy refused to put on the seat belt the pilot brought the plane back to the gate and asked the boy and his father to get off the plane.

The father, Mark Yanchak, told My North West that the crew overreacted to the situation. Yanchak said:

“Kids crying, people snoring, large, smelly people, we deal with it, it’s normal… He was crying, being cranky. I started putting him in his seat. I put his seatbelt on. But he was being cranky, trying to be close to me, so he wasn’t fully fastened yet.”

Yanchak said that his wife, who was seated with their other son, brought over a pacifier and some water and they were able to get the boy to calm down and put on his seat belt. But by that time, the pilot had already brought the plane to the gate.

The airline said that it was a safety issue and the pilot decided to deal with the situation on the ground instead of in the air.

What do you think? Should the airline have been more understanding? Was the airline right to kick the 3-year-old off the flight?