Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has vowed that his department will investigate after a recent viral video clip showed airline baggage handlers dropping a wheelchair down a slide and allowing it to crash to the ground.
The video clip in question was originally captured and posted to the video-sharing app TikTok on Sunday by user Haeley Dyrdahl, with a caption that read, “Dang, after I saw them do this and laugh with the first two wheelchairs, I had to get it on film. That is not what I’d call ‘handling with care’ for someone’s mobility device.” The TikTok user referenced American Airlines with a hashtag in the caption and included a Miami, Florida, location tag.
The video showed one baggage handler at the top of a jet bridge placing a wheelchair onto a metal slide and allowing it to roll down to another baggage handler on the ground. As the chair gained momentum, the baggage handler on the ground stepped away from the ramp, allowing the chair to hit a stop at the bottom of the ramp. As the chair reached the bottom of the ramp, it flipped over and tumbled for several feet across the tarmac before the ground-level baggage handler picked it up and placed it on a baggage trolley alongside other wheelchairs.
The video was subsequently shared across social media, including by blogger Becca Peter, who shared the clip on the X social media platform (formerly known as Twitter)
“Wheelchair users have been trying for ages to raise awareness about their wheelchairs being broken so often when they fly and the devastating impact this has on them. @AmericanAir baggage handlers decided to give a demonstration of how much they enjoy breaking them,” Ms. Peter wrote.
The original TikTok video has garnered more than 3 million views on the platform, and Ms. Peter’s repost has since garnered more than 7 million additional views.
Mr. Buttigieg responded to Ms. Peter on X the following day, announcing that the Department of Transportation would be looking into the incident caught on camera.
“This is totally unacceptable. We’ll be investigating. This is exactly why we are taking action to protect passengers who use wheelchairs. Everyone deserves to travel safely and with dignity,” Mr. Buttigieg wrote.
Ms. Peter responded by thanking Mr. Buttigieg for giving his attention to the incident. She also asked that investigators reach out to Ms. Dyrdahl as they look into the incident.
American Airlines told NTD News that it is also looking into the incident captured in the viral video.
“We recognize how important it is to support the independence of customers with disabilities by ensuring the proper care of mobility devices throughout their journey with us. This visual is deeply concerning, and we are gathering more details so that we can address them with our team,” the airline said in an emailed statement. “We will continue to work hard to improve our handling of assistive devices across our network.”
Airline travel for wheelchair users has been a point of interest for Mr. Buttigieg during his tenure as the head of the Department of Transportation. He shared a video in July of this year, explaining that he’d heard numerous stories from advocates and friends who use wheelchairs and who have had their mobility devices damaged or destroyed during the course of their airline travel.
In his July video, Mr. Buttigieg said the Transportation Department is working toward a goal of allowing more wheelchair users to remain in their personal wheelchairs during airline travel and said the Federal Aviation Administration has initiated a three-year research process on the safety ramifications of allowing such wheelchair access in flight.
According to the Transportation Department’s Air Travel Consumer Report, passengers reported their wheelchairs and scooters had been mishandled a total of 11,389 times in 2022.