More Airline Idiocy: Widow sues American Airlines after dispute over eye drops leads to 'terroristic threat' charge

Richard S. Cardarelli only wanted to retrieve some eye drops from the carry-on bag he had just given an American Airlines employee at Philadelphia International Airport.

They weren't just eye drops, either. They were medications necessary for his health, owing to a cornea transplant years earlier.

But the American Airlines baggage handler - who had taken the bag at the door of the jet aircraft because there was no room for carry-ons in the small plane - told Cardarelli that he couldn't touch the bag again, even though it was still sitting in plain sight a few feet away on the boarding bridge.

An argument began, things became heated, and although Cardarelli got his eyedrops, he also got arrested.