Disabled Man Crawls Off Plane: D. Baraka Kanaan Suing Delta For Declining To Help Him Enter And Exit Plane

Former college professor D. Baraka Kanaan claims that Delta Airlines employees failed to accommodate his disability and forced him to crawl across a tarmac to board and exit an aircraft. He filed suit in U.S. District Court in Hawaii, seeking damages for "intense physical and extreme emotional suffering" stemming from the incident.Kanaan has been partially paralyzed since a car accident in 2000. His complaint says that he called prior to his flight to make sure that Delta knew that he was disabled and made the requisite arrangements so that he could travel with his own wheelchair. He also asked for an aisle chair (to help him navigate while on the plane) and lift access because he is unable to walk. The representative who he spoke with on the phone took note of his needs and assured Kanaan that accommodations would be made for him when he arrived. But when his flight was cancelled and rescheduled, somehow the prior accommodations did not transfer to the new flight.