Lansing State Journal from Lansing, Michigan • Page 8

2 www.lsj.com 8A Friday, August 10, 2001 Lansing State Journal Airline treating kids like luggage CARS 2649 E. Grand River, East Lansin 15 DISCOUNT (near Park Lake Rd.) 337-9320 1011 Southland CAR RENTAL (Price off total car ranM charge (near Logan Holmes) 394-4700 heard about the lost child, Pouncey said, 1 called my ex-wife and said, "We're changing. I dont want her to end up in End up in Florida is exactly what happened to Aunnalise Woods, 11, who in mid-July was placed on an airplane in Los Angeles by her mother but then was transferred to the wrong connecting flight to Detroit by airline personnel. After an 18-hour trip that ended up routing her through Las Vegas as well as Florida, she finally reached her waiting dad in Detroit. "You lose luggage.

You lose keys. You don't lose a child," Aunnalise's father, Bill McDaniel, told CNN. Days later, Cody Sherill, age 10, went missing for five hours when his flight from Ohio where he'd been visiting grandparents was grounded due to equipment failure. The airline sent Cody to Phoenix, before forwarding him home to San Diego, apparently without informing his family. America West then announced that starting Sept.

10, it would fly unaccompanied minors under 12 only on nonstop flights, eliminating them from travel to any destination that required a change of plane. Before the new policy could even kick in, the Spears sisters (Sierra, 8, and Krista, 11 were briefly lost last weekend. They left their father in Texas, deplaned Phoenix to catch a connecting flight and were mistakenly sent to Ontario, instead of to San Diego, where their mother, Michelle, was waiting. Like the other parents whose children were lost, she had paid an extra $60 each way to the airline to ensure that her children would be escorted by an adult employee to the right connecting flights. America West lost track of four young fliers in a span of four weeks By Bettifane Levine and Beverly Beyette Los Angeles Times LOS ANGELES Yes, America, you can lose a child in the air.

Parents learned their lesson the hard way as America West lost track of four children in as many weeks. The airline has now changed its policy on kids traveling alone. Other airlines are reviewing their policies. So are parents. Although there are rules governing the transport and treatment of pets on airlines, there are no federal regulations that govern the treatment of children who travel alone.

Each airline has different rules and methods of caring for unaccompanied minors (known as U.M.s). And "it's a real turkey shoot as to how well or how closely a child is monitored" by any given airline, said Todd Curtis of Seattle's AirSafe.com, a consumer watchdog group. At Los Angeles International Airport, Kenny Pouncey, a technical consultant waiting to catch his flight home to Houston, had heard about the lost kids, and it prompted him to action. His daughter, Kenna, 8, now in Houston with her grandmother, will fly home to Los Angeles soon alone. But now on a nonstop flight.

"We were actually going to use America West until we started hearing about all this fun stuff. Now we're going to use Continental, which is nonstop" to Los Angeles to get her home to Long Beach and her mother, he says. When he Hi What a relief: Michelle Spears (right) is reunited with her two children, Sierra, 8, (left) and Krista, 11, at Lindbergh Field in San Diego after they were lost during a flight with America West on Aug. 4. Pepsi requires additional personnel to care for your unaccompanied child." Jim Sabourin, vice president of America West Airlines, which "lost" the four children, says that none of them were really lost.

Each was in the good care of America West employees the entire time, he says, even though other employees and the children's families could not always locate them. Peter Greenberg, chief correspondent for the Travel Channel and travel editor for NBC's "Today Show," says "the bottom line about kids on planes is this: Any time you send an unaccompanied minor on an airline, the false presumption is that there is day care in the air." That's not necessarily so, he says. "There is no FAA mandate that Tracktivation Team! See the Pepsi Show Car. Experience the thrill of racing as you drive into a fully equipped working pit stop. Unsolved: Police obtain warrant in slaying Play XS Racing video gai and receive FREE giveaways! Tuesday, August 14 Noon 6 p.m.

Lansing Meijer Store S. Pennsylvania, fust N. of 1-96 exhumation. Rosier immediately remembered a song, one that she's associated with Laurie for 31 years. Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Waters," a favorite of Laurie's, was played at her memorial service.

Contact Christine MacDonald at 377-1286 or cniacdonalsj.com. Con -tact Adam Emerson at 377-1058 or aemersonlsj.com. Everybody was totally shocked." Mason resident Susan Rosier remembered what police were asking people. "They asked that everyone check any outbuildings, your yard," she said. your eyes they said." Laurie's body was found just down the road from Kosier's parents' home.

Thirty-one years later, memories returned with the news of Laurie's with Mayor Max Murninghan. "A lot of people were fearful," Belen said Thursday. This happened about 2 p.m. broad daylight." Donna Graves agreed. She is the wife of Gerald Graves, who defeated Murninghan for mayor in 1969.

"If people were murdered, it was never somebody we knew," Graves said. "This was one of our own. It was a child in our community. The whole thought process was wrong. Continued FROM 1A But the trail ended July 20, when three young boys stumbled across Laurie's decomposed body in a swampy pond in a wooded area southeast of Mason.

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