Advertisement

Girl kicked off plane for coughing

Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter

HONOLULU, March 30 (UPI) -- A Hawaii teenager who was kicked off a Continental Airlines flight when she had a coughing fit said she's flying again very soon.

"I am a little scared since I'm traveling Continental again and I'm not traveling with any adults," Rachel Collier, 16, told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin of her plans to fly with a friend next week to Egypt for a wedding.

Advertisement

Collier flew home to Hawaii on Wednesday, one day after a Continental captain told her and a teacher to get off their plane before it departed Newark, N.J. Collier said she had a cold and had fallen asleep waiting for the plane to take off, and that when she woke up she couldn't stop coughing.

"Everyone was looking at me," Collier said. "I couldn't talk because I lost my voice coughing so much. I was panicking."

She said the coughing subsided, but the captain wanted her off the plane.

A Continental Airlines news release said Collier was coughing "uncontrollably."

"The captain felt he was acting in the best interest of the passenger and other passengers on the flight," it said.

"I felt it was really extreme for a coughing fit," the teenager's mother, Stephanie Collier, told the Star-Bulletin. "We've all had coughing fits."

Advertisement

Latest Headlines