Chicago: Several minutes after a video showing security officers dragging a passenger off an overbooked United Airlines flight at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport went viral, a smaller snippet of video, showing an even more troubling scene, appeared.
There stood the Chinese-American passenger who had been dragged on his back to the front of the plane, appearing dazed as he spoke through bloody lips and blood that had spilled onto his chin. “I want to go home, I want to go home,” he said.
The videos prompted outrage, scorn and calls for boycott of the US carrier on social media, especially from China.
United Airlines claims to be the biggest carrier to China, with more nonstop US-China flights to more Chinese cities than any other airline.
The incident occurred Sunday on a United Express flight from Chicago to Louisville, Kentucky. Such flights are operated by one of eight regional airlines that partner with United.
United was trying to make room for four employees of a partner airline, meaning four people had to get off the flight.
At first, the airline asked for volunteers, offering $400 and when that didn’t work, $800 per passenger to relinquish a seat. When no one came forward, United selected four passengers at random.
Three deplaned but the fourth, a man who said he was a doctor and needed to get home to treat patients on Monday, refused.
Three men, identified later as city aviation department security officers, got on the plane. After two officers tried to reason with the man, a third came aboard and pointed at the man “basically saying, ‘Sir, you have to get off the plane,’” said Tyler Bridges, a passenger.
One of the security officers could be seen grabbing the screaming man from his window seat, across the armrest and dragging him down the aisle by his arms.
United Airlines’ parent company CEO Oscar Munoz late Monday issued a letter defending his employees, saying the passenger was being “disruptive and belligerent.”
While Mr Munoz said he was “upset” to see and hear what happened, “our employees followed established procedures for dealing with situations like this.” Chicago’s aviation department said the security officer who grabbed the passenger had been placed on leave.
After a three-hour delay, United Express Flight 3411 took off without the man aboard.
