Delta Airlines Flight 2355 passenger Cynthia Angel thought she was doing the right thing when she discreetly mentioned to a flight attendant that she thought she smelled alcohol on her soon-to-be pilot’s breath. Little did she know her reward for speaking up would be a one-way ticket off the flight.

“I quietly went to the head stewardess,” Angel told Fox News, “and said ‘I don’t know what protocol is and I have never come across this before – what exactly happens when I and other passengers feel like we smelled alcohol on the pilot’s breath?’”

Angel says the flight attendant escorted her to the cockpit where she met the co-pilot. He listened to her concerns and explained he had been with the Captain for several hours prior and assured her he had not been drinking.

According to Angel’s account, she was instructed to take her seat. She was then approached by a Delta employee who took her off the plane and asked her to retell her story. Angel was once again permitted to board the plane where she prepared for her flight home. But 20 minutes later, the Delta employee returned.

“I was basically forced to get off the plane,” Angel said. “They basically grabbed my luggage and said, ‘ma’am you need to come with us.’”

Angel was escorted off the plane and brought to an office inside the terminal.

“I became very upset,” Angel explains. “First of all, I needed to go home that night. But on top of that I felt like I was being treated like a criminal – like I did something wrong because I was concerned. I was being vigilant in what I felt was my civil duty to protect people.”

In a statement emailed to Fox News, Delta says it took the matter very seriously.

“The pilot responded immediately to Ms. Angel’s concerns,” the airline said. “Airport Customer Service, in consultation with the flight crew, determined that because the passenger continued to express concern even after the pilot was cleared that it would be best to reaccommodate her on another flight.”

Angel says it wasn’t until after she was removed from the flight that anyone explained that the pilot tested negative for alcohol.

“I would have been very, very happy to speak to the pilot in the jetway and he could say ‘I’m so sorry you thought this, I appreciate your concern for other people’s safety, I’m totally fine, everything is good’ and I would have taken my seat and not talked to anyone,” Angel said.

“They never gave me a chance to do that.”

Kara Schawk contributed to this article