101 Orthodox Jewish students from a Brooklyn yeshiva were kicked off an Airtran flight. While they were ostensibly kicked off for not powering off their phones and sitting down, they alleged that they were "treated like terrorists".

The Yeshivah of Flatbush students and their eight shaperones were on their way to a senior class trip in Atlanta. While Southwest, who owns Airtran, say they were violating safety procedures, the students do not agree and say that secular students would have been treated differently

"It blew out of proportion. It was a mountain out of a molehill," Yeshivah of Flatbush teacher Marian Wielgus, one of the eight chaperones, said to press. She said the stewardesses "created an incident when there didn't have to be one" and acted "nasty."

Wielgus said that they all eventually complied with requests to power down their phones, but a few weren't paying attention and had to be told more than once.

"They certainly did not do what the stewardess was claiming they did," she said. "That's what was so bizarre."

She said that the actions of a few shouldn't have resulted in all 109 students being expelled. "It was so ugly," she said.

Students also spoke out. One student, Jonathan Zehavi, said that the flight crew "treated us like we were terrorists," he said. "I think if it was a group of non-religious kids, the air stewardess wouldn't have dared to kick them off."

Another student, Michael Mamiye, said that he wasn't offered a chance to turn off his phone before being kicked off.

Southwest Airlines spokesman Brad Hawkins said that when the students refused to obey the demands of the flight's crew, including the pilot, they were asked to leave the plane, resulting in a 45-minute delay of the flight.

Rabbi Seth Linfield said he has spoken with several students, and that it does "not appear that the action taken by the flight crew was justified".