Videos posted to Facebook and Twitter show a passenger on United Airlines Flight 3411 being dragged from the plane before takeoff at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.
Audra D. Bridges posted one video to Facebook at 7:30 p.m. Sunday that appears to show three officers speaking with the man seconds before grabbing him and pulling his from his seat. The man screams as he is dragged down the aisle of the plane that was scheduled to fly to Louisville, Ky.
The Courier-Journal reported that a United spokesperson confirmed in an email Sunday night that a passenger had been taken off a flight in Chicago.
"Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville was overbooked," the spokesperson said. "After our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate.
"We apologize for the overbook situation. Further details on the removed customer should be directed to authorities."
On Monday, another United spokesman, Charlie Hobart, said airline employees named four customers who had to leave the plane and that three of them did so. He said law enforcement was called when the fourth person refused to get off the plane.
"We followed the right procedures," Hobart told the Associated Press in a phone interview. "That plane had to depart. We wanted to get our customers to their destinations, and when one gentleman refused to get off the aircraft, we had to call the Chicago Police Department."
One of the cops has been suspended, apparently for roughness.
I'll try to embed the pic here at LF, otherwise visit the link.
A new video shows a moment that happened about ten minutes after the initial removal, according to witnesses. The passenger came running back onto the flight, went to the rear of the aircraft, and clutched a post, mumbling just kill me and I want to go home repeatedly.
The situation was mishandled in every respect by the airline personnel and the cops.
The passenger should have never been mistreated by dragging him off the aircraft.
However, the passenger is either a friggin nutcase, acting so Deckardish like .or he knew exactly what he was doing all the time while mentally counting the mega bucks coming his way after the lawsuit.
Update: United's public stock "plunges" in wake of passenger being dragged off plane.
Meanwhile, the Courier-Journal got a hold of the dragged-off passenger's name and discovered a "troubled past."
Dao was trying to regain his medical license when he worked at the practice from August 2015 to August 2016, Nadeau said. Dao had surrendered his medical license in February 2005 after being convicted of drug-related offenses, according to documents filed with the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure last June. Broadcast and print coverage of Dao's arrest, conviction and sentencing made his name familiar to Kentuckians.
...
Dao, who went to medical school in Vietnam in the 1970s before moving to the U.S., has worked as a pulmonologist in Elizabethtown but was arrested in 2003 and eventually convicted of drug-related offenses after an undercover investigation, according to the documents filed with the state board of medical licensure.
The licensure board documents allege that he was involved in fraudulent prescriptions for controlled substances and was sexually involved with a patient who used to work for his practice and assisted police in building a case against him.
Dao was convicted of multiple felony counts of obtaining drugs by fraud and deceit in November 2004 and was placed on five years of supervised probation in January 2005, according to the documents. He surrendered his medical license the next month.
The Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure permitted Dao to resume practicing medicine in 2015 under certain conditions.
Well, well, well. A crooked doctor who got a bloody mouth. Interesting to see how slowly any real facts dribble out in this story. That's because professionalism in news reporting seems to be at an all-time low.
United is paying a hefty price for the viral outrage over a passenger being dragged off an overbooked flight Sunday.
Shares of United Continental had plummeted 3 percent by noon Tuesday, cutting hundreds of millions of dollars off the company's value.
After holding steady Monday, shares in the airline fell Tuesday as the controversy spread over social media in response to video showing a passenger, Kentucky doctor David Dao, being forcibly and violently removed from his seat on an overbooked flight from Chicago to Louisville, Ky., Sunday night.