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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

United Passenger Moves to Secure Proof of Viral Incident

The doctor dragged off of a United Airlines flight this week filed an emergency bill of discovery in Cook County Circuit Court on Wednesday asking for the court to order United and Chicago to preserve evidence of the incident that went viral.

CHICAGO (CN) – The doctor dragged off of a United Airlines flight this week filed an emergency bill of discovery in Cook County Circuit Court on Wednesday asking for the court to order United and Chicago to preserve evidence of the incident that went viral.

Passenger cellphone videos captured what happened Sunday as David A.D. Dao was screaming while being forcibly removed by Aviation Department police from a United airplane at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport headed for Louisville, Ky.

His face injured and bleeding, Dao ran back onto the plane, collapsed and was taken out again on a stretcher.

Dao and three other passengers were asked to leave the flight to make room for United employees on the overbooked plane. The rest got off, but Dao refused to be bumped and the flight crew called police for help.

Amidst social media backlash, calls for boycotts and plummeting stocks, United CEO Oscar Munoz told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that he is ashamed of what happened.

“That is not who our family at United is,” he said Wednesday morning. “This will never happen again.”

The Chicago Department of Aviation issued a statement that the incident “was not in accordance with our standard operating procedure” and placed one of the officers involved on leave.

Dao is now asking that the city and United preserve surveillance video of passengers boarding the flight, the cockpit voice recording, passenger and crew lists, incident reports and personnel files for the police involved.

Represented by Thomas Demetrio of Corboy & Demetrio P.C. and Stephen Golan of Golan Christie Taglia LLP, Dao is currently recovering from his injuries at a Chicago hospital.

Categories / Consumers, Personal Injury

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