united airlines' motto has been "Fly the Friendly Skies of United" for a long, long time. Now that a cell phone video taken of a passenger being brutally dragged from an United Airlines' plane went viral, it is safe to say that motto isn't ringing true for the masses today.
When United overbooked the seats on a flight, they offered four passengers up to $1,000 a piece to give up their seats and board a later flight. When there were no takers, the airline staff randomly picked four passengers to leave their seats. Three of those passengers got off the plane unassisted, but a fourth passenger refused to leave and was dragged off the plane.
Passenger said 'no'
This is when airport security was called and they boarded the plane and used enough force to cause this passenger's face to be covered in blood. The man hit his head on a seat's armrest while they were extracting him from his seat and off the plane. The passenger was a 69-year-old man, who is a doctor.
Not overbooked?
According to "Fox and Friends" live on Tuesday morning, the airline had not actually overbooked, but they needed those seats for their staff. They were moving four employees from point A to point B and they needed the four seats.
Added insult to injury
The passenger on the video was humiliated and he did suffer bodily harm, evident by the blood streaming down his face in the video.
After this video went viral, United Airlines chief executive Oscar Munoz released a statement that made the incident even worse in the eyes of the public. Or as the BBC News suggests, "added more fuel to the fire."
Munoz said that "this was an upsetting event for all of us here at United." He then said, "I apologize for having to re-accommodate these customers." He never once mentioned the horrific use of force the world had witnessed by now via that cell-phone video.
'Fox and Friends' weighs in
On Tuesday morning Judge Andrew Napolitano was on "Fox and Friends" and he was saying that this case will probably never make it into court in the form of a lawsuit. He thinks that the airlines will probably settle with this passenger out of court for a few reasons. One being that they probably don't want any more publicity about this incident than need be and the biggest reason would be that it is a cut and dry case.
Witnesses mortified
There were so many witnesses to the man being dragged from the plane. When you got to see those witnesses as the video follows this man being dragged, the people watching looked horrified. Usually when an unruly passenger is being extracted off a flight, the passengers break out in applause, but this was different. The look on their faces is best described as mortified.
The United passenger has since been identified as David Dao, an Elizabethtown doctor. This doctor happened to make the news back in 2004 when he was convicted in Kentucky on drug-related offenses, according to the Courier-Journal.
Passenger well-known doctor?
Whether this doctor has a checker past or not does't change the sequence of events that went against this man's rights as a passenger on board an airline.
This incident took place on board United Express Flight 34111 that was getting ready to depart O'Hare International Airport in Chicago.
Another thing that probably should come out of this would be some extra training for the airport security. The judge on "Fox and Friends" said that the airport security or police don't have to act unless there is some type of law being broken and in this case there wasn't.
Security officer on leave...
The passenger had paid for his ticket and was in the seat he paid for. Just because he refuse to give up his seat doesn't mean airport security has the right to come on board and treat him as if he was a threat to society.
According to the Courier Journal, the security officer who actually did the dragging of Dao has been placed on leave by the Chicago Department of Aviation. The department also said that it does not condone the security officer's actions and that his actions on board the United flight was "not in accordance with its standard operating procedure."
