Complaint says a rushed transfer at a West Virginia airport left a 24-year-old passenger with injuries he did not survive.
LAS VEGAS, Nev. — The father of a 24-year-old West Virginia man who used a power wheelchair has sued Allegiant, alleging the airline failed to provide safe boarding help after his son fell while entering a flight at Huntington Tri-State Airport and died the next day.
The lawsuit puts a personal tragedy into a wider fight over how airlines and their contractors handle one of the hardest moments in air travel for disabled passengers: the transfer from a personal wheelchair to the narrow chair used to reach the aircraft door or cabin. The case names Allegiant Travel Company and Allegiant Air and arrives after the federal government tightened disability protections for air travelers who use wheelchairs. For the Adkins family, the immediate stakes are damages and accountability. For the airline, the case could test what staff, equipment and training were in place at the time.
According to the complaint, the chain of events began March 28, 2024, when Hunter Adkins arrived at Huntington Tri-State Airport with his father, Tony Adkins, and his 9-year-old brother, Kaden, to board an Allegiant flight. Hunter Adkins had muscular dystrophy and relied on a motorized wheelchair. The suit says he was met at the bottom of the ramp and moved into a narrower boarding chair for the trip to the aircraft door. As that chair was taken up the ramp and over a transition plate near the doorway, it tipped, throwing him face-first to the ground, the complaint says. The filing alleges the worker assisting him and the chair then fell on top of him. He was taken from the aircraft area to a local hospital and died the next morning, March 29, 2024, after what the family says were blunt-force injuries from the fall.
The family says the fall was not a random mishap but the result of a boarding process that had already gone off track. The complaint alleges the flight captain wanted the airplane on the runway quickly and that workers who were supposed to help with Hunter Adkins’ transfer were reassigned to load baggage, leaving one assistant to do a job the family says required more people and safer equipment. The suit also claims the chair used on the ramp was not the proper aisle wheelchair and did not have needed safety straps. It says the worker pushed, rather than pulled, the chair up the ramp. Because of his disability, the filing says, Hunter Adkins could not catch himself. Tony Adkins and Kaden Adkins both witnessed the fall, according to the complaint, and the suit seeks damages tied not only to wrongful death and negligence but also to the emotional harm the family says came from seeing the incident happen in front of them.
Federal disability rules already required airlines to provide prompt enplaning and deplaning assistance from properly trained personnel, along with the use of wheelchairs, ramps or lifts when needed. The Transportation Department’s Bill of Rights for airline passengers with disabilities also says airlines must offer preboarding to passengers who need extra time or help and cannot leave a passenger who is not independently mobile unattended in a wheelchair or similar device for more than 30 minutes. The Adkins lawsuit does not claim those rules were missing. Instead, it argues that the required help was not delivered safely at the most physical point of the trip, near the aircraft doorway. What remains unknown in public accounts is how Allegiant will answer the complaint in court, what staffing directions were given on the ramp that day, and whether the person handling the chair worked directly for the airline or for a contractor assigned to provide wheelchair service.
The case also lands against a national backdrop of closer scrutiny of airline treatment of passengers who use wheelchairs. On Feb. 29, 2024, less than a month before Hunter Adkins’ fall, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced what the department called the biggest proposed expansion of rights for passengers who use wheelchairs since 2008. The department said reporting airlines had mishandled 11,527 wheelchairs and scooters in 2023. A final rule published in December 2024 and effective Jan. 16, 2025, said its purpose was to increase access to safe and dignified air travel and reduce fatal and nonfatal injuries. Among other things, the rule requires annual hands-on training for airline employees and contractors who physically assist passengers with mobility disabilities or handle wheelchairs and scooters. The events in the Adkins case predate that final rule, but the new rule shows the federal government had already been focused on the same kinds of transfer risks long before this lawsuit was filed.
The lawsuit was filed in Clark County District Court in Nevada, where Allegiant is based, and it asks for a jury trial and damages of more than $15,000, along with other relief. The complaint includes claims for wrongful death, negligence, and allegations tied to hiring, training and supervision. Publicly, Allegiant has not addressed the detailed allegations. In a statement carried by several outlets, the airline said, “While we cannot comment on pending litigation, we extend our deepest sympathies to the family and loved ones affected by this heartbreaking situation.” That leaves the dispute at the opening pleadings stage. The family’s filing lays out its version of what happened. The airline will now have the chance to answer, deny, or seek dismissal of some claims. As of Monday, no hearing date had been publicly announced, and the next visible step is expected to be Allegiant’s first formal response in the Nevada court docket.
For the Adkins family, the lawsuit is framed as more than a single negligence claim. Attorney Jim Murphy, who represents the family, said the case seeks justice for Hunter Adkins and also aims to help protect other travelers with disabilities. In the family’s account, the critical moments lasted only seconds, from the transfer out of Hunter Adkins’ motorized wheelchair to the tipping point near the plane’s entrance. But the legal and emotional fallout has stretched for two years, from the hospital trip in March 2024 to a wrongful death case now starting in Las Vegas. The scene described in the complaint is stark: a small airport ramp, a narrow chair, a metal transition point near the doorway, and close relatives watching in real time as a routine act of boarding turned into a fatal emergency. That picture helps explain why the lawsuit has drawn attention well beyond West Virginia. It asks how safe air travel is when a passenger is fully dependent on airline systems working exactly as promised.
For now, the case remains in its opening stage. The next clear milestone is Allegiant’s first court filing in Clark County, followed by early scheduling orders that will show how quickly the lawsuit moves after a boarding incident that the family says should never have happened.
Author note: Last updated March 30, 2026.