Wheelchair basketball players say Southwest Airlines damaged equipment ahead of championship in Virginia

RICHMOND, Va. - The National Wheelchair Basketball Championships kick off in Virginia this weekend, but some of the players are now dealing with damaged equipment after getting off the plane in Richmond. 

Dozens of DI, DII, and DIII athletes will play their first game Friday morning at the state-of-the-art Henrico Sports & Event Center, but several will be playing with broken chairs after they say the airline damaged their wheels and blamed them for the inconvenience.

"It’s not just mistreatment, it’s blatant disrespect," said wheelchair athlete Justin Walker. "These are our legs. We rolled into Virginia and when we got off the plane they had messed everybody’s wheelchairs up."

Wheelchair athlete Justin Walker claims Southwest Airlines employees damaged his team's wheelchairs during a flight to Richmond for the National Wheelchair Basketball Championships.

Walker, and his teammates on the ability360 Phoenix Suns Wheelchair Basketball Team, uploaded a video on social media, showing the alleged destruction.

Walker told FOX 5 that the Southwest Airlines staff at Richmond International Airport removed the wheels off their chairs and the chairs of other teams that were also on the flight coming from Denver.

"We told them multiple times, do not remove the wheels from these chairs, do not," Walker recalled. 

He says the airlines' employees weren’t considerate of their inability to just "put the wheels back on."

"They would grab a wheel, walk onto the plane and ask us ‘whose wheel it was.’ We would then say it was our wheel. They would take it, and put it back on the jetway, expecting us to get our wheels."

When the parents of players who had made it off the plane tried to get back on the plane to help, the police were called.

"They said it was illegal for them to get back on the jetway," Walker explained. 

In a statement to FOX 5, Southwest Airlines said, "We have reviewed the situation and addressed it with the appropriate parties."

Walker said the players spent about four hours at the airport making sure everyone's wheels were put back on.

"I want to be treated as a person. Just as I would treat you," he said. "I want to be looked at as if I don’t have a chair."

Some teams are expected to fly in and out of local airports in the coming days.

Walker has a message for airline employees: "Listen! You expect us to listen to how many exits are on the plane and how the oxygen comes down, but when I tell you about my chair and my legs, listen."

He added that typically, there’s a way to put the wheelchair under the plane without removing the wheels.

He said, unfortunately, what they experienced with Southwest Airlines is a reality that he wants to see change.