Family: Airline Refused to Let Son with Down Syndrome Aboard Cross-Country Flight

The Vanderhorst family.

A California family says they were kicked off a cross-country American Airlines flight because their 16-year-old son has Down syndrome.
Joan and Robert Vanderhorst, of Bakersfield, Calif., said they intend to sue American over the "humiliating" incident at Newark Airport, in which they were told their special needs son posed a "flight risk."
"It's defamation," Robert Vanderhorst told the Daily News. "It's a violation of his civil rights and its defamation."