Family booted from Delta flight

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Delta Air Lines is offering refunds and compensation to a California family that says they were forced off a plane and threatened with jail after refusing to give up one of their seats on a crowded flight.

A video of the April 23 incident was uploaded to YouTube on Wednesday and added to the list of recent encounters on airlines that have gone viral, including the dragging of a bloodied passenger off a United Express plane.

Brian and Brittany Schear of Huntington Beach, California, told KABC-TV in Los Angeles that they were returning from Hawaii with their two toddlers. They wanted to put one of the children in a seat they had bought for their 18-year-old son, who instead flew home on an earlier flight.

Delta says on its website that tickets cannot be transferred and name changes are not allowed. Federal regulations do not bar changing the name on a ticket as long as the new passenger’s name can be run through a data base before the flight, according to a Transportation Security Administration spokesman.

By late Thursday afternoon, Delta still had not explained why the Schears were removed from the plane. A spokesman said the flight was not overbooked.

Woman: Suspect said he loved her

WILMINGTON, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio woman who authorities found trapped in a small pit in a neighbor’s shed testified in court Thursday that the man told her he loved her as he closed the shed door.

The woman testified at a hearing for Dennis Dunn in Clinton County Municipal Court. Dunn, 45, was arrested April 26 on a charge of kidnapping when police found the woman after someone reported hearing cries from the shed in Blanchester, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) northeast of Cincinnati.

Police have said she may have been trapped about four hours.

Dunn’s lawyer, James Hartke, said Thursday that no plea has been entered, but that he does not believe Dunn is guilty of kidnapping. The judge sent the case to the county Common Pleas Court, and it’s expected to go before a grand jury.

Hartke has said he believes Dunn suffers from an undiagnosed mental disorder. The judge did not rule on his request for a court-ordered psychological evaluation to determine if Dunn is competent to assist in his defense, Hartke said.