PORTERVILLE, Calif. (KMPH) -
"I'm there with my kid with the luggage and my wife's over there crying at the desk," Robert Vanderhorst said.
For the Vanderhorst family of Porterville, what had been a great trip back East for a family reunion was ending in a nightmare.
"My stomach was in knots and I would say I was grinding my teeth," Vanderhorst said.
Vanderhorst says he, his wife and his 16-year-old son, Bede, who has Down Syndrome, had gotten to the Newark airport a little early.
So they checked an airport kiosk to see if there were any first-class upgrades available.
There were four.
So they bought three.
"This was the first time (we were flying) first class with Bede. She's all happy. We're early and it's stress free," Vanderhorst said.
But that stress-free feeling faded fast when an American Airlines employee approached the family.
"Well the pilot says if your son creates any kind of disturbance in the air, he's going to have to turn the plane around and bring it back down and you guys are going to have to get off," Vanderhorst said referring to what the employee told him.
That's when emotions started to soar and Robert's wife started loudly questioning the employee.
Robert says he'd noticed the plane's pilot standing at the American Airlines desk earlier, but didn't think anything of it at the time.
"I'm speculating that the pilot saw my son from a distance in the waiting area, saw me walking him around, saw him sitting in a chair kicking his shoes, flapping his hat and humming to himself like he does, saw me walking around with him and how he shuffles, he doesn't move very fast. And the pilot determined, this is speculation, that he didn't want that person, my son, in first class," Vanderhorst said.
But American Airlines paints a different picture of Bede as a security risk.
In a statement, it says: "Our customer service team observed the Vanderhorst teen yelling and running around the gate area. He seemed very agitated. There were times when he was calm, but unfortunately, when it came time to board the flight he became agitated again."
In a video shot by Bede's mom, you can see him sitting down, playing with his hat.
"My son didn't run. He didn't walk up to anyone and make a loud noise and sit next to someone and disturb someone in the waiting area," Vanderhorst said.
Bede is a freshman at Granite Hills High School in Porterville.
His dad describes him as a sweet, loving boy who is not easily excited.
He says, Bede is the last person to pose a security risk.
"Am I a security risk, 5'6", 180, no. But five-feet-tall, 160 pounds and Down Syndrome, he's a security risk," Vanderhorst said.
Vanderhorst says, after telling them they would not be flying on that plane, American Airlines booked them on another flight, two hours later on another airline.
Their seats this time were at the very back of the plane. And no passengers were allowed to sit within two rows of them.
"We went from first class to last class. That's what happened to us. We dared to upgrade our tickets to first class and dared to attempt to bring a 16-year-old Down Syndrome son into first class. We paid the money, but how dare we attempt to inflict our son on those other gentle people paying for first class passage," Vanderhorst said.
Robert hopes his family's experience leads to changes for all the airlines.
And he says, from now on, whenever Bede flies the friendly or not-so-friendly skies, he'll go first class.
The Vanderhorsts tell KMPH News they haven't decided yet whether or not they will sue American Airlines.
And as for their first-class upgrade that they didn't get, they say, they have not yet been reimbursed.
