Father upset with airline after daughter ends up in wrong state

BROOKLINE, Mass. -- A local father is demanding answers from an airline after his young daughter who was traveling alone ended up on the wrong flight.

Jonathan Kamens thought he had planned for everything when he arranged for his 10-year-old daughter Miriam to fly unaccompanied from Logan Airport to Cleveland on Sunday.

But nothing could have prepared him for the phone call he got from his father-in-law telling him from Cleveland that Miriam was not on the plane.

"She's not on the plane? What do you mean she's not on the plane? I put her on the plane. So he said, ‘I'll go talk to them' and I said, ‘Find out where my daughter is!' So I'm going ballistic," Kamens said

Miriam was taking an express jet, so she had to board the plane on the tarmac -- where Kamens was not allowed -- so he didn't see her physically get on the Cleveland plane.

"There was a Newark flight boarding out of the same gate at the same time. It was an express jet, they don't use the jetway, they use tarmac, and there were two planes sitting on the tarmac and apparently the gate agent put her on the wrong plane," Kamens said.

So instead of being in Cleveland, Miriam flew to Newark, close to 450 miles away. Kamens says she was waiting for about 45 minutes before he discovered what went wrong.

"I thought this is outrageous, this is completely unacceptable. There were at least five different people who didn't do their jobs to allow this to happen," Kamens said.

Continental Airlines released a statement reading, "We take very seriously our responsibility to care for unaccompanied minors on our flights. We are truly sorry for this error and have apologized to the family."

Miriam made it to Cleveland about four hours later. Continental said despite the mistake, she was supervised every step of the way.

Kamens said that Miriam's grandparents will be flying home with her when she returns in two weeks.

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