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What crime did he commit?

United was 100% in the wrong up until the point that Dao refused to obey the orders of the flight crew to disembark (they were wrong to order him to disembark, but once they did and he refused, he was in violation of 49 U.S. Code § 46504, which comes with a 20 year prison sentence).

Again, don't think that I agree with United for removing Dao once he was seated on the aircraft or that I agree with the totalitarian situation that exists in airports or on airlines; I am merely stating that this is the reality in which we live these days.

The normal procedure for dealing with unruly passengers (to include those who don't obey orders) is to, when they are on the ground, call the cops and have them removed from the plane. If they are in the air, the procedure is to either restrain them until the plane lands (turning them over to the cops at that time) or to divert the plane and turn them over to the cops. We see stories on a regular basis of this happening -- most of the time it's when there is a physical altercation or a direct threat; however there have been some egregious examples out there (to include this example of when a family objected to being forced to watch a movie with "adult themes" in it).

When Dao refused to obey the orders of the flight crew, they called the airport cops on him -- at that point in time, he was in violation of the law. When he refused to obey the orders of the airport cops, the airport cops did what any cop does when you don't comply: they made him comply.

What all of us saw on that video was the result of refusing to comply with the orders of a peace officer (which, oh, by the way, is yet another separate crime on top of the one he already committed when he refused to comply with the orders of the flight crew).

If you are subject to a traffic stop and the cop orders you to get out of the car slowly, you're going to obey that order, right? Even if there was no good reason for the cop to pull you over in the first place...

If you don't obey the order to get out of the car, there are going to be consequences -- whether or not there was a just reason for the traffic stop in the first place. We all know this -- we all accept this.

If that same cop then orders you to assume the position and pats you down, whether or not there is a reason to do so, you are going to comply...otherwise there will be consequences. Again, we know this and we mostly accept this.

We MAY want to take the cop to court after the fact for violation of our civil rights, but the fact of the matter is that we're not going to refuse to comply in the instant, because there are going to be consequences.

I don't know of anybody who would disagree with the analysis of the traffic stop situation just described. But that is basically what happened in the Dao situation: United shouldn't have given the order for him to disembark, but once they did, he was legally obliged to obey that order. The only reason why that's not patently obvious is that there is a viral YouTube video and saturation coverage on all the news networks.

Frankly, I've never been a big fan of United, but since they decided to cave, my unwillingness to fly them is now extended to the point of being willing to pay extra or incur extra time to never set foot on a United flight again. (i.e., if I have to fly from BWI to SEA, I'll pay extra and allow several hours extra to fly through ATL (DL), DFW (AA), or CLT (AA) rather than fly through ORD (UA)). Because if they're going to be wimps on that, they're going to allow anybody else to push them around. And that's not good for safety or comfort.