Thanks to all for replies - My wife and I were on the departing flight and were the last ones to board - my daughter stayed behind with family for a couple of days. Before the flight had taken off, she called us to tell us what had happened. To be clear, they had already changed her flight to a later date and issued her a new ticket.

We contacted an AA employee at the connecting gate to tell him what happened and he put through a claim for us. It was agonizingly slow to get a response from them and ultimately they just denied the claim without providing any reason.

Thank you for the suggestions. I have included some additional info later in the thread which answers (I think) some of the questions raised by others.