Hearing begins involving FAA, JetBlue and local woman

Talat Tahaira says all she wanted to do was lie down and get some sleep, but JetBlue Airways decided to have her detained by police instead.

Tahaira had been traveling some 30 hours after visiting relatives in her native Pakistan and the 69-year-old Kirkland woman is diabetic and arthritic.

But, she says, when she tried to stretch out in an empty exit row in November on a JetBlue flight from New York to Seattle, the flight attendants repeatedly manhandled her back to another seat and threatened to have her arrested.

And, she contends, it was all because she's Pakistani and a Muslim.

But JetBlue and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) see it differently.

A flight attendant says Tahaira wasn't allowed to sit in the exit row because her English was limited and she wasn't physically capable of helping in an emergency. She said Tahaira refused when offered other open rows and became unruly.

The FAA is seeking to fine Tahaira $6,000 for repeatedly disobeying instructions and then assaulting one of the flight attendants.

The FAA convened a hearing Wednesday on the case at the federal courthouse in Seattle. A decision is expected today.

Tahaira's son, with some local Muslim leaders, are rallying to her aid and have gotten a lawyer to fight the fine.

"This is a travesty," Larry Hildes, of Bellingham, Tahaira's attorney, told The Times. "A 69-year-old woman in a wheelchair assaulted a flight attendant? We think it's flat racism and anti-Muslim bias and the FAA has no business participating in this."

Neither JetBlue nor the FAA would comment. But the flight attendant testified Wednesday that there was no discrimination — only a "very disruptive" passenger who wouldn't take no for an answer and then grabbed her so hard she got a bruise.

"We don't know anyone's religion," said flight attendant Leah Stevens. "I don't know anything about anybody. We're there to perform our duties. That's all I was doing, was my job."

Tahaira, a permanent resident who has lived with her son in Kirkland since 2001, said the JetBlue flight Nov. 8 was mostly empty, and other passengers were allowed to stretch out across other rows.

She contends the flight crew physically "dragged" her back to her assigned seat and wouldn't let her go back to the exit row for her heart medicine, her attorney said.

When she protested their rude behavior and threatened to complain officially, they made jokes and then forced her to sit with another woman who appeared to be Middle Eastern.

Then police detained her for an hour at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

She denies she ever grabbed the flight attendant, her attorney said.

Now she's afraid to fly and has nightmares about the incident, she said Wednesday in her native Urdu with her son interpreting.

"I just want to be respectfully cleared because I didn't do anything," she said through her son outside the courtroom.

Her lawyer and supporters say that the fine should be dropped and JetBlue should apologize. They also say it's absurd that the FAA has paid to fly witnesses to Seattle for the case. Even the administrative-law judge, Richard Goodwin, has flown from Washington, D.C., to hear it.

"For a $6,000 fine?" said her son, Mat Chaudhry, outside the courtroom. He is a pilot-training designer for Boeing. "For my mother, who doesn't have a penny?"

The hearing is being held in Seattle because the flight ended in Seattle and Tahaira lives in the area.

Stevens, the flight attendant, said the airline couldn't allow Tahaira to sit in the exit row because her English was limited and she wasn't physically capable of helping in an emergency.

When the crew offered Tahaira other open rows to lie down, she refused, Stevens said. She estimated they escorted Tahaira back to her assigned seat some 15 times, but Tahaira would go back to the exit row when they weren't looking.

Finally, Tahaira got up and started "screaming" that other passengers were allowed to lie down while she wasn't because she is a Muslim, Stevens said.

Stevens said Tahaira grabbed her left wrist and yanked her down the aisle in an effort to point out the other sleeping passengers. She said she was almost pulled off her feet.

"Though she's a small woman, she has strong hands," Stevens testified.

"It was a huge distraction for the whole aircraft, and a lot of people didn't get the whole JetBlue experience we try to offer."

Ian Ith: 206-464-2109 or iith@seattletimes.com