American Still Hasn’t Responded To Accusations Of Anti-Semitism; Think You See A Safety Issue On A Plane? Here Is What I Would Do

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Earlier this week, 2 unrelated Orthodox Jews, aged 17 and 21, were unceremoniously tossed off of their flight from Cleveland to Reagan National Airport.

American has so far refused to issue any statement on what happened or why they were removed. To me, that means they don’t have any plausible justification for the removal of 17 year old Reuvi Scheinerman from the flight, so they’re saying nothing and are hoping that people forget about the story.

The Forward published the story today as have several blogs, but the mainstream media has not. One reporter tells me that the issue is not having any uninvolved eyewitnesses or video from the flight, but locating people from a small plane without news coverage is a difficult task indeed. The flight crew is not authorized to speak to the media.

Were you on AA flight 4447 on 5/5? Please email [email protected] to share what you saw.

Our original X/Twitter thread was viewed nearly 200,000 times. You can like, repost, and quote these posts to continue to spread awareness of the story:

On Sunday, May 5th, @AmericanAir Kicked an orthodox Jewish passenger off a flight due to the actions of an unrelated orthodox Jew.

This story was so outrageous I had to investigate, and after talking to the two passengers involved, the story seems even worse than I thought!

— DansDeals (@DansDeals) May 7, 2024

How long can @AmericanAir stay silent? #AntiSemitismInTheAir https://t.co/0kZWyFtADm

— DansDeals (@DansDeals) May 8, 2024

Yehudah Roffman, 21, wasn’t even supposed to be on the flight. He and other passengers flying to JFK missed their flight due to long TSA lines and were rebooked to LaGuardia via DC. He told DansDeals that he was nervous about a dent he noticed on the Embraer 175’s tail and his mother told him to advise a flight attendant.

That was good advice.

My assumption is that he was removed for asking about the dent some 5 times at the front of the plane. The crew never acknowledged his concerns and told him to take his seat, before deciding to remove him from the plane.

Inexplicably, Reuvi Scheinerman, who had no interaction with the crew or Yehudah and had never even met him before, was also then removed from the flight. The only common denominators? They were both flying back to their respective yeshivas after Pesach break, with Reuvi headed to Connecticut and Yehudah headed to New York City. They were also both wearing typical yeshiva garb: black pants, a dark suit jacket, and a black fedora. And both had kosher flip phones, non-smartphones with only calling and SMS capabilities, which is very common among yeshiva students.

I’ve flown the E175 many times, but I’ll admit that I’ve never looked very closely at the tail. Turns out, to the untrained eye it certainly does look like the tail is dented where it meets the “tail wings” or adjustable horizontal stabilizer:

Yehudah wasn’t the first person to notice the dent. A quick search shows nervous passengers on reddit and other forums fretting about seeing the dent as well.

In an era of plug doors falling off airborne planes, several near-misses at United that warranted an FAA review of safety procedures and suspension of new routes, and endless failures and whistleblowers at Boeing, one would think the crew would be more sympathetic to a 21 year old who was nervous about what does look like a dent.

Surely the crew of an E175 would know that it does indeed look like a dent and would reassure him that it’s actually just the way that plane is designed?

But US crews are seemingly untrained to properly deescalate situations like this. Instead, they appear to have ignored his concerns and told him to just sit down.

That’s just wrong. Yes, he should have listened to instructions the first time, but he was clearly nervous and frustrated at being ignored for something he was genuinely concerned about. How hard would it have been to treat him with respect and reassure his concerns?

Personally, if I noticed something that bothered me about my plane, I’d take my seat, and ring the flight attendant call button. I rarely use that button, but this is a case that it’s meant for.

There are a few things that cabin crew really don’t like. They don’t like passengers holding up the boarding process. That makes sense, as most don’t get paid until the doors are closed, so get to your seat and sit down. And they don’t like passengers in the galley area. It gets in their work space and can feel confrontational.

While sitting down in my seat, I’d calmly tell the flight attendant when they come over that I noticed XYZ and was wondering if that is normal. If the response reassured me, I’d end the conversation there, but if not, I might ask to speak to the lead flight attendant or a pilot if my concerns rose to that level. And if I still felt like I was being blown off, I would probably ask to be deboarded. That’s preferable to causing a scene that may get you blacklisted from an airline.

However, these are nuances that I’ve picked up after flying more than 1,000 flights, and I wouldn’t blame a young flier for not knowing plane etiquette.

If I noticed something that looks wrong at the gate prior to boarding, I’d probably ask the gate agent as well. They’re usually too busy to help, but crew often hangs around that area, and the gate agent may be able to refer the question to the crew.

The E175 “dented” design was pointed out by Bored Bochur on the DansDeals Forums. There are hundreds of travel and aviation geeks on DDF at all hours of the day and night, so it’s a great place to share a concern or ask a question to see if something should be brought up to the flight crew.

The main thing is that when you see something, you should still say something, and not be scared of being thrown off of a flight. After all, there have been plenty of incidents where passengers do see real problems, such as missing bolts from a wing to anomalies seen from the window, you have a perspective that pilots don’t have. If this story stops people from speaking up, that will have been the wrong lesson to take.

Have you ever noticed something wrong or suspicious on your flight?