Combat-wounded Marine (now a cop) removed from exit-row seat by Delta for being an amputee

ATLANTA, GA— Just over a week before Memorial Day Matias Ferreira, a combat-wounded U.S. Marine Corps veteran and active law enforcement officer with the Suffolk County Police Department in New York boarded a Delta Airlines flight bound for Atlanta, GA.

As usual, he booked an exit row seat to enjoy the additional leg-room, a plus for the double-amputee who walks with prosthetics. However, on this flight, the athletic Marine veteran and police officer in peak physical condition was met with an unexpected demand from Delta staff to change seats.

In a post to social media, Officer Ferreira explained,

“I typically book an aisle seat on the exit row so that I can stretch my legs out and have a little more space than the other seats. They typically ask if you’re willing and able to assist in a case of an emergency and I respond YES.
This time, one of the gate agents board the plane, comes up and says sir, I can see you have a physical disability, I’m going to have to move you.
I told him that I am willing and able to perform the duties required of me. I am an active PO / U.S Marine who still competes in many physical areas of sports and life.
They called and said something about the FAA states that if you have a physical disability you can’t sit in those seats and cannot take off until I move. I stood up, I was moved a few seats up, into a middle seat, embarrassed.
I have sat in these seats numerous times; ready and willing to assist in case something happened; today I was told that I am not capable of doing this because I have a ‘physical disability.’

What my goal is, to raise awareness on what people with disabilities and or prosthetics are capable of doing. I coach, mentor, work with veterans, law enforcement officers, and many other people including children who are MORE than capable of being useful and reliable despite a ‘Disability.’”


Under FAA regulations §121.585, an airline employee must “determine to the extent necessary to perform the applicable functions of paragraph (d) of this section, the suitability of each person it permits to occupy an exit seat,” and cannot seat a person in the exit row if:

“(1) The person lacks sufficient mobility, strength, or dexterity in both arms and hands, and both legs:

1. To reach upward, sideways, and downward to the location of emergency exit and exit-slide operating mechanisms;
2. To grasp and push, pull, turn, or otherwise manipulate those mechanisms;
3. To push, shove, pull, or otherwise open emergency exits;
4. To lift out, hold, deposit on nearby seats, or maneuver over the seatbacks to the next row objects the size and weight of over-wing window exit doors;
5. To remove obstructions similar in size and weight to over-wing exit doors;
6. To reach the emergency exit expeditiously;
7. To maintain balance while removing obstructions;
8. To exit expeditiously;
9. To stabilize an escape slide after deployment; or
10. To assist others in getting off an escape slide”

The Delta Air Lines Professional Policy Library provides more condensed guidance. Likewise, it states that the exit row passengers must not, “Have a condition that might cause them harm if they perform one or more of the applicable exit row functions,” or “Lack sufficient mobility, strength, or dexterity in both arms and hands, and both legs to reach the emergency exit, operate the exit and exit expeditiously.”


Source: Delta Airlines- Delta Professional Policy Library (https://pro.delta.com/content/agency/us/en/policy-library/seat-programs/seating-information.html)

Ferreira, however, could scarcely be considered unable to meet, if not exceed, these requirements. CBS News reported in 2020 that Ferreira, who joined the Suffolk County Police Department in 2017 as the first double-amputee in active service, had served competently for three years. The outlet noted, “most people he runs into would have no idea both his legs were amputated.”

Speaking to CBS2’s Cindy Hsu at the time he explained that he had stepped on an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in 2011. "I remember my corpsman just running up and start applying the tourniquets and start getting me some morphine and ripping my pants and telling me everything is going to be okay," he told the reporter.

"My back-up plan was if I didn't serve 20 years in the Marine Corps, that I was going to be a law enforcement officer," Ferreira said.

Fox 5 New York reported that Ferreira rejected special treatment in serving the Suffolk County PD, and sought to do everything he could before he was injured and prove he is like any other officer.

“I knew when it came down to it when I went to the street it wasn’t going to be ‘Hold on slow down, give me pity, I’m a double amputee,’ you can’t even tell, especially with pants on,” he told the outlet.

“When it came down to jump over the fence I knew I earned that I did it before in training and when I was putting someone in handcuffs, I knew I was doing the right thing and you know there was an ethical value behind that and a lot of love and passion and pain behind it too bc it took a lot of guts you know to get through the academy.”

Good to his word, Officer Ferreira worked his beat for two years on patrol from the Suffolk County PD First Precinct, writing about 200 summonses and making approximately 50 arrests before becoming a community liaison officer.

Outside his life on the force and vocal advocacy for veterans and law enforcement, Ferreira skydives, plays softball, and runs marathons. "I have a 5-year-old daughter so I don't want anyone to ever tell her she can't do something. So one of the mottos we came up with is, 'Life without a limb is limitless,'" he told CBS.

In a post to LinkedIn, Law Enforcement Today Owner Kyle Reyes expressed his support for Ferreira writing, “What Delta Air Lines just did to this Marine and #lawenforcement officer is OUTRAGEOUS. Matias Ferreira - we've got your six.”

Law Enforcement Today has reached out to Delta Air Lines for comment, however, the airline failed to respond before publication.