What rows, specifically - I seem to have missed the spot in the article where it said which row was mentioned? If it were an exit row, would you let someone with rather severe autism sit there? And why did the crew "leave the terminal"? Could it have been that they timed out?

I'm surprised that a pilot would take a news story at face value given the horrible track record the media has in getting aviation facts correct. For that matter, I'm just happy they didn't identify the airplane as a "Cessna".