An Oregon woman filed a lawsuit against United Airlines, claiming that she and her family were kicked off a Portland-bound flight because her teenage daughter is autistic.

Dr. Donna Beegle says she and her family were flying back to Oregon from Disney World last week when her 15-year-old daughter, Juliette, began to get agitated because she was hungry.

"I asked the flight attendant if they had anything hot, because Juliette is very particular about her food," Beegle told KPTV. "If it's warm she won't eat it, if it's cold she won't eat it, it has to have steam rolling off of it."

Although the attendant said she would bring her a hot sandwich, the sandwich was cold when it arrived, and Juliette refused to eat it, Beegle said.

"I could see [Juliette] getting frustrated," Beegle said. "I asked if I can purchase something hot for my daughter, and [the first class flight attendant] said no. ... I called him back over and I said to him, 'Please, help us out here,' [but he refused.]

"He came back again, and I said, 'I have a child with special needs, I need to get her something.' And he said, 'I can't do that,'" she explained. "I said, 'How about we wait for her to have a meltdown, she'll be crying and trying to scratch in frustration. I don't want her to get to that point.'"

Eventually, the attendant brought Juliette rice and jambalaya, Beegle said, and "she ate and she was fine."

However, shortly thereafter, the pilot announced that the plane was making an emergency landing.

"The next thing we hear is we're doing an emergency landing in Salt Lake City," Beegle told NBC station KGW of Portland, Oregon. "We have a passenger on board with a behavior issue," said the pilot, according to Beegle, despite the fact that Juliette had calmed down.

Nonetheless, police officers boarded the plane to escort the entire family off. "As a mom it ripped my heart out. I was shaking," she said.

Beegle recounted the experience in a Facebook post, writing, "Juliette has flown since she was 6 months. She has been to five countries, 24 states, and we have never experienced anything like this."

Following the incident, United released a statement saying its "crew made the best decision for the safety and comfort of all of our customers and elected to divert to Salt Lake City after the situation became disruptive," reports Yahoo! News.

However, Beegle announced that she has filed official complaints with United and the Federal Aviation Administration and that she plans to sue the airline to "ask that airline staff receive training" on how to deal with passengers with Autism.