Man Violently Dragged Off United Airlines Flight

United Airlines Pulls Passenger Who Refused To Give Up Seat

CHICAGO (AP) The latest on an incident in which a man was dragged from a plane at O’Hare International Airport.

A man says a fellow passenger who was dragged off an overbooked United Airlines flight protested to airline employees that he was a doctor who needed to see patients in the morning.

Passenger Tyler Bridges of Kentucky says that’s apparently why the man didn’t want to give up his seat on the Sunday evening flight from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. United asked for volunteers then chose passengers when none came forward. United said it called police when the man wouldn’t deplane. A video taken by Bridges’ wife shows three security officials grabbing the man from his seat and dragging him down the aisle.

A United Airlines spokesman says airline employees were “following the right procedures” when they called police who then dragged a man off a plane at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

Charles Hobart says the employees were justified in calling law enforcement Sunday night to remove the man because the flight was overbooked and couldn’t leave for Louisville, Kentucky, with too many passengers on board.

He said in an email that United employees had asked for volunteers and when none were forthcoming, four were selected to leave.

A video shot by another passenger shows the man being pulled across a seat and armrest and physically dragged from the plane.

Hobart says the man was removed by Chicago police but the police department says its officers were not involved. Officer Jose Estrada says the incident was handled by the city’s aviation department police force.

Video shows three security officials dragging a passenger from a United Airlines flight at a Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

The (Louisville) Courier-Journal reports (http://cjky.it/2oQtLIA ) a United representative confirmed Sunday night that a person was removed from Flight 3411 to Louisville, Kentucky, saying it was “overbooked.”

Passenger Audra D. Bridges posted the video on Facebook. It shows the guards grabbing then dragging the passenger down the aisle. Screaming is heard and other passengers say “Oh my God” and “Look at what you did to him.”

United said airline representatives chose four passengers at random when no volunteers agreed to leave the overbooked flight. They requested law enforcement assistance when one of them refused to leave.

Bridges says United asked for four passengers to relinquish their seats for airline employees on stand-by.