According to the baby's mother, 33-year-old Jennifer Zanone of Denver, the incident took place on American Airlines flight AA126 headed from Hong Kong to Dallas-Fort Worth on Saturday.
As the plane landed, an entire ceiling panel above seat 35L, including an oxygen tank, fell onto her son, who was sitting on her lap. She told Star-Telegram that flight attendants told her to wait for a gate agent to document the occurrence — but no agents ever showed up.
"We stood there waiting for an agent and our stroller until the captain himself walked off the flight and apologized to us," said Zanone. "After leaving the gate area, we went to the next customer service area to try to report the incident and were given the runaround for an hour and a half. While the apologies were appreciated, documentation of the incident would have been preferred," she added.
In a recent email statement, American Airlines claimed that flight attendants asked Zanone whether she wanted medical assistance upon arrival, but that she declined the request.
— Jennifer Zanone (@jennifer_zanone) April 8, 2018
"American's primary concern is for the Zanone family and their young child. Our customer relations team has spoken with Mrs. Zanone to offer additional support and obtain details of what transpired at Dallas-Fort Worth yesterday. Customers trust us to take care of them and we take that responsibility seriously," the statement said.
The airline also noted that the aircraft was inspected and repaired by its operations team Saturday night.
"Our Dallas-Fort Worth and Tech Ops teams are also working to gather more information and facts surrounding this unfortunate incident," the statement added.
Zanone said that she did decline assistance from medical personnel but was frustrated by what she viewed as an insufficient response by the airline after her arrival.
"We were offered medical assistance immediately following the incident and we did decline because I didn't know what the medic could do on site with a jet-lagged, exhausted child, so I chose to monitor himself [sic] until I could get him back to his own doctor," said Zanone.
According to Zanone, the airline responded to her on social media after she uploaded a picture of the fallen ceiling panel on Twitter.
"They called me this morning [Sunday] simply saying that they would email me more info. I have not received any emails at this time so I am not certain what additional assistance we were offered," said Zanone.
