From: http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20060601&Category=News01&ArtNo=606010394&SectionCat=NEWS01&Template=printart Article published Jun 1, 2006 *Airline mix-up wasn't luggage, but teen* *United flight returns to O'Hare, retrieves right kid.* PATRICK M. O'CONNELL Tribune Staff Writer GOSHEN -- Lucas Rios emerged groggily from his nap, glanced at the clock and wondered why he was sitting in the United Airlines lounge instead of boarding his Monday afternoon flight to South Bend. "I should have been on my plane by now," Lucas thought, shaking away the remnants of sleep. The 14-year-old scanned the room where United monitors kids who are flying alone, quickly realizing all the other children who had been waiting with him inside Chicago's O'Hare International Airport were gone. Lucas approached the airline employee to investigate. The man checked the scheduling information on his computer.Click. Click. Click. A few seconds later the employee broke the news: Lucas' plane, United Express Flight 8047, already was in the air. "I just kinda stood there looking at him because he was still working on the computer," Lucas said. "But I was extremely annoyed. I didn't know when the next flight was going to be and I was worried I'd be stuck there for a while." United employees, Lucas found out, mistakenly put a different child on the plane. During the airline's paid service to provide care for unaccompanied children fliers, the employees mixed up Lucas and another boy as they waited for their flights in the kids lounge.The other boy, about 10 years old, was bound for Taipei, Taiwan, via Tokyo. It was Lucas, dozing off during his layover from Colorado Springs, Colo., who was bound for Indiana. If not for his curiosity, Lucas wonders if he might have been headed for Japan. "I think it would have gotten to that point if I wouldn't have said anything," he said. Informed of the error, United employees scurried and huddled and talked.The plane -- midflight -- turned around and returned to Chicago. After landing back at O'Hare, airline personnel escorted the 10-year-old boy, who did not speak English, back to the gate and Lucas found his seat aboard the aircraft. "Well, now we have the right one," the flight attendant told the passengers as the plane took off a second time, guaranteed a late arrival. *Unprecedented event* Lucas, a veteran air traveler as an eighth-grade graduate, has never experienced a situation like the one Monday.In his eight years of trips between his father's house in Colorado and his mother's in Goshen, Lucas can't remember a time when the airline escort service failed him. "Now I'll have to be watching them and make sure they remember to watch me," Lucas said. The passenger swap likely happened, Lucas surmises, when the 10-year-old, perhaps confused and unable to understand what was said, stood up when Lucas' name was called as Lucas slept. As part of the accompaniment process, employees escort children from planes to the lounge, where personnel await word via radio that the child's flight is boarding. An employee then finds the child's ticket, calls out a name, and escorts the child to the departing flight, Lucas said. Children do not carry their own ticket, Lucas said, and are not provided with or asked for identification.On the plane, Lucas couldn't tell if passengers on his flight were upset. But as they prepared to disembark, a few told him they hope the mix-up never happens again. *More than luggage* When the plane landed in South Bend, the jet's pilot walked with Lucas to the terminal and told his mom, Kim Reed, about the fiasco. Reed smiled when she saw Lucas, who stays with her during summers and holiday breaks, but was perturbed to hear United employees allowed the mistake to happen. Reed and Lucas' father, Mike Rios, pay about $60 to $75 for the accompaniment guarantee before each trip because they want to ensure their son will be safe as he transfers planes in a bustling air hub."Because you're paying for this service, you don't think something like this is going to happen," Reed said. "I'm forced to put him on a plane because I want to see my son. Now, I don't have any peace of mind about it at all." Reed called the airline to file a complaint. As of Wednesday afternoon, she had not heard back. A United Airlines spokeswoman was unable to provide information about the incident by deadline Wednesday, but the scenario was confirmed by South Bend Regional Airport Executive Director John Schalliol. Reed said she is not seeking any compensation; she simply wants to know what the airline is going to do to prevent this type of mishap from happening in the future. "You didn't just misplace my luggage," Reed said. "This falls way more in-depth than that. You didn't misplace my luggage; you misplaced my kid."