The flight was overbooked, and they needed to remove four passengers.
The passengers were offered an overnight hotel room and $400.
They asked for volunteers. None.
They raised the offer to an overnight hotel room and $800.
They once again asked for volunteers. None.
They randomly picked four people. Three complied.
This guy flatly refused.
They explained he didn’t have a choice, he would have to disembark.
He refused.
Somehow they got him off the plane.
Minutes later, he was back on the plane.
They once again told him he would have to disembark.
He refused.
They called the airport police.
He was removed.
He was injured due to his own refusal to do what the other three passengers reluctantly had to do.
This guy has a very sordid record.
He’s very fortunate he still has a license (work related).
I do fly from time to time, but it has been a while.
Look, things come up every single day of my life that I do not want to do. As an adult, I have to tell myself that’s the way it goes, and follow through. Why should this guy be any different?
I don’t know if they assaulted him as a means of pay-back. I suspect any injuries he got were inflicted because he was fighting tooth and nail to remain on board.
BTW: Every other passenger had to sit there while this guy held up the flight.
Long term captains and stewards explain that behavior abnormalities on the ground are magnified during the flight. If a person was giving them problems on the ground, most of the time they turn into a nightmare on the flight. At that point they think they can do anything they want, because the crew can’t just toss them out a door or some such.
Not only that, he thinks the flight crew deserved to be trashed for the full flight for giving him a hard time. It would be insufferable to have him there carping on them using profanity et all. (That’s the real potential)
Then if he gets an in-flight drink(s), it gets even worse.
The airline crews have the safety of a lot of people on those flights. This guy violated a number of problematic warning signs on the ground. From that alone, he was a prime target to not be allowed to fly.
He’s definitely not a guy I’d want in a seat next to me, or anywhere on the plane for that matter.
This sort is even a danger to go into depression mid-flight when he “came down” and do something that might endanger the whole flight.
What if he decided he just wanted to end it all, and it would be a very fitting way if he opened a door to exit, just to show them and get even?
Sorry, the guy doesn’t get my sympathy.
Minutes later, he was back on the plane.
They once again told him he would have to disembark.
He refused.
They called the airport police.
He was removed.
The version I heard was that they called the police to get him off the plane the first time and that after he had been removed he re-appeared on the plane, bleeding.
Yes, the guy has a sordid background, but I'm not sure that is going to help United in this situation because it would look just as bad if had they violently removed someone with a non-sordid background.
You have wrong info! Wrong doc, for one. Also timing of events. Great to parrot United, I presume you have stock or relationship and, further, that you do not fly very often or at all?
I believe it’s been clearly established that the flight was not overbooked.
I likes you but this account is not factual. He was sitting in his seat. He refused to volunteer which was his right under United’s rules of carriage. Check ‘em on the website, I did.
Three goons, in various outfits arrive and tell him he has to leave. He says no I need to see patients in the morning and his lawyer is on the phone telling him he has the right to stay. One goon in baggy jeans tazes him and pulls him over the seat rest striking his head. He screams from the tazing but is immediately silent as he is concussed from his head striking the seat rest. He is dragged silently up the aisle dripping blood from his nose & mouth while all the passengers say “ this is terrible, there was no reason to treat him like that” etc.
They dump him in the walkway outside the plane and go off to get a stretcher. He comes to and staggers back into the plane, runs back to a pillar near his seat and clutches it saying I just want to go home, kill me, just kill me. He has a concussion he was admitted to the hospital in Chicago. In the end they take everyone out of the plane to clean up the blood & reboard them all including Dao and fly to Chicago 2 hrs late. Personally I think that flying him with a head injury and no medical evaluation was very dangerous, the barotrauma could worsen his condition.
“The flight was overbooked”
NO is wasn’t! They had boarded everyone, they were seated and it was a full flight. Then these four airline employees show up who “must travel” because they have crew assignments the next day out of Louisville. As others have pointed out this wasn’t a denied boarding issue. He’s going to retire on the eight-figure settlement that UAL is going to offer.
And none of this has a damned thing to do with his problems as a doctor overprescribing painkillers.
You remind me of a guy who wants spark plugs for his car and the counter man wants to know if his car has whitewall tires.
Sorry DO, I usually agree with you but not this time.