World
11:48, 18-Oct-2017
Aviation officers fired after dragging man off United flight
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The city of Chicago has fired two airport police officers involved in the forcible removal of a passenger from a United Airlines plane earlier this year, an incident that provoked outrage in China, as the passenger was initially thought to be a Chinese.
On April 9 this year, David Dao, a 69-year-old Vietnamese-American physician, was forcibly dragged from a fully booked flight after refusing to give up his seat to an airline crew member. Video footage showed his face covered in blood as he was removed from his seat, sparking public outrage.
The viral video shows Dao being pulled from his seat resulting in his face being slammed on an armrest. He was then dragged down the aisle by his arm and legs as his glasses slid down his face.
The incident left Dao with “a concussion, a broken nose and the loss of two teeth,” said officials from the City of Chicago Office.
Chicago’s Inspector General Joseph Ferguson announced that after an investigation, two of the four Chicago Department of Aviation (CDA) employees have been fired and the other two suspended, but he did not specify when the disciplinary actions were taken nor did he reveal the officers' names.
The two fired employees were the officer who initially pulled Dao from his seat and the supervisor who engaged in "the deliberate removal of facts from an employee report," the inspector general said.
Two other officers, one who "made misleading statements in two reports" and another who "made material omissions in a report," were handed five-day suspensions.
One of the suspended officers chose to resign. The other challenged his suspension, which was reduced to two days.
After initially mishandling the aftermath, the airline repeatedly apologized, agreed to a settlement with Dao for an undisclosed sum, and announced a series of operational changes.