Washington: A grieving mother has sued American Airlines for $10 million, alleging that she was forced to check in her carry-on luggage containing her daughter’s ashes which the airline then misplaced.
Iddy Pierre-Canel has filed a lawsuit against American Airlines claiming that she was forced to check in her carry-on bag on a flight from Baltimore to Tucson, Arizona, with her dead daughter’s ashes inside, which was then lost, NBC-affiliate KPNX-TV reported.
Ms Pierre-Canel said her daughter, Carm-Idrelle Casseus, 28, died after a battle with unspecified medical problems. She said an American Airlines employee insisted twice that she check in her bag while waiting at the gate on March 5, 2016. She was quoted as saying that she made it clear she was carrying her daughter’s ashes and wanted to keep them close.
“When the plane took off, that’s when I realised I didn’t have my bag. They said, ‘Oh, they checked your bag in’,” she said.
Ms Pierre-Canel said she remembers an employee picking her bags up, but she said she was under the impression they were helping her take the bags to her seat since she was distraught. Her attorney Lorraine Morey said her client was promised her bags would be the first off the plane. However, when she arrived to Tucson, her bag was nowhere to be found. American Airlines released a statement regarding the incident, saying, “We apologised for losing the items and certainly are very sorry for her terrible loss. However, no urn was mentioned on that list.”
