I agree. No way should this woman have been traveling alone! Delta made a mistake issuing the boarding pass, TSA let her through security and for the life of me I don't know how that happened b/c they sure do check ID and boarding pass thoroughly whenever I've gone through. None of that should have happened for sure. However, how could you let your 80 year old non English speaking granny fly alone???
I was issued someone else's boarding pass one time, but noticed it b/4 I got to TSA and went back to get it taken care of. I know it happens occasionally. But the real problem to me is that this woman was not able to check things such as this and therefore, should have had someone with her. I assume she was taken to the airport by family and was helped with the check-in process by a loved one. Seems they should have caught the error.
Sorry it had to happen since I'm sure it was frightening for that poor woman. Hopefully her family will be more careful. As for the airlines and TSA, they are human and not infallible. They are compensating the family, so hopefully no lawsuit is in the offing. Hopefully.