United Airlines planes at San Francisco International Airport on July 25, 2013. (Photo: Justin Sullivan, Getty Images) 
 
 A video posted on Facebook late Sunday evening shows a passenger on a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Louisville being forcibly removed from the plane before takeoff at O’Hare International Airport. 
 
 The video, posted by Audra D. Bridges at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, is taken from an aisle seat on a commercial airplane that appears to be preparing to take flight. The 31-second clip shows three men wearing radio equipment and security jackets speaking with a man identified as Elizabethtown doctor David Dao seated on the plane. After a few seconds, one of the men grabs the passenger, who screams, and drags him by his arms toward the front of the plane. The video ends before anything else is shown. 
 
 A United spokesperson confirmed in an email Sunday night that a passenger had been taken off a flight in Chicago. 
 
 "Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville was overbooked," the spokesperson said. "After our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate. 
 
 "We apologize for the overbook situation. Further details on the removed customer should be directed to authorities." 
 
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 Bridges, a Louisville resident, gave her account of the flight Sunday night. 
 
 Passengers were told at the gate that the flight was overbooked and United, offering $400 and a hotel stay, was looking for one volunteer to take another flight to Louisville at 3 p.m. Monday. Passengers were allowed to board the flight, Bridges said, and once the flight was filled those on the plane were told that four people needed to give up their seats to stand-by United employees that needed to be in Louisville on Monday for a flight. Passengers were told that the flight would not take off until the United crew had seats, Bridges said, and the offer was increased to $800, but no one volunteered. 
 
 Then, she said, a manager came aboard the plane and said a computer would select four people to be taken off the flight. One couple was selected first and left the airplane, she said, before the man in the video was confronted. 
 
 On Monday, United released a statement from CEO Oscar Munoz: "This is an upsetting event to all of us here at United. I apologize for having to re-accommodate these customers. Our team is moving with a sense of urgency to work with the authorities and conduct our own detailed review of what happened. We are also reaching out to this passenger to talk directly to him and further address and resolve this situation." 
 
 United CEO response to United Express Flight 3411. pic.twitter.com/rF5gNIvVd0 — United (@united) April 10, 2017 
 
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 Bridges said the man became "very upset" and said that he was a doctor who needed to see patients at a hospital in the morning. The manager told him that security would be called if he did not leave willingly, Bridges said, and the man said he was calling his lawyer. One security official came and spoke with him, and then another security officer came when he still refused. Then, she said, a third security official came on the plane and threw the passenger against the armrest before dragging him out of the plane. 
 
 The man was able to get back on the plane after initially being taken off – his face was bloody and he seemed disoriented, Bridges said, and he ran to the back of the plane. Passengers asked to get off the plane as a medical crew came on to deal with the passenger, she said, and passengers were then told to go back to the gate so that officials could "tidy up" the plane before taking off. 
 
 Bridges said the man shown in the video was the only person who was forcibly removed. 
 
 "Everyone was shocked and appalled," Bridges said. "There were several children on the flight as well that were very upset." 
 
 The flight was delayed around two hours before it could fly to Louisville, and it arrived in Kentucky later Sunday night. No update was given to the passengers about the condition of the man forcibly removed, Bridges said. 
 
 The Chicago Department of Aviation said Monday afternoon that it had placed the security officer who pulled the man out of his seat on leave pending a “thorough review” of the situation. 
 
 The aviation department said in an emailed statement that the incident wasn’t in accordance with its standard operating procedure and the officer’s actions “are obviously not condoned by the Department.” 
 
 The department confirmed that all three men who were seen on video talking to the man who was removed from the flight were aviation security officers. 
 
 CLOSE A video posted on Facebook late Sunday evening shows a passenger on a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Louisville being forcibly removed from the plane before takeoff at O’Hare International Airport. Wochit 
 
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 Read or Share this story: http://cjky.it/2oQjOdX ||||| A man was forcibly removed from an overbooked United Airlines flight Sunday, sparking widespread horror after a video of the incident was posted online: 
 
 @United overbook #flight3411 and decided to force random passengers off the plane. Here's how they did it: pic.twitter.com/QfefM8X2cW — Jayse D. Anspach (@JayseDavid) April 10, 2017 
 
 According to the passenger who filmed the video, United initially asked if four volunteers on the flight from Chicago to Louisville would be willing to give up their seat for $400, a free night in the hotel, and a flight at 3 p.m. Monday. The plane required the seats for flight crew members, who were needed in Louisville in order to arrive in time for their next flights. When no passenger accepted the trade, the airline doubled the offer to $800. When still no one accepted, United reportedly used a computer to randomly choose passengers who had already boarded the flight to be required to give up their seats. 
 
 After two people willingly left the plane, the man in the video reportedly said he was unwilling to surrender his seat because he was a doctor and had patients to see in the Louisville area Monday morning. He was then aggressively dragged from the plane, his face bloodied by officers forcing him out of his seat. Passengers filmed the incident, and the man can be heard screaming in captured footage. The man was eventually allowed to re-board the plane, which left with a two-hour delay. 
 
 "Everyone was shocked and appalled," said Audra D. Bridges, who recorded the video and gave her account of the events to The Courier-Journal. "There were several children on the flight as well that were very upset." 
 
 A spokesperson for United said: "Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville was overbooked. After our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate. We apologize for the overbook situation." Jeva Lange ||||| The adage about a picture being worth a thousand words never seemed as true as it did early Monday morning, when a video clip shot around the Internet showing a passenger being violently removed from a United Airlines plane in Chicago for refusing to be “voluntarily” bumped from the flight. 
 
 United no doubt will expend thousands of words explaining or apologizing for this incident in coming hours, days and weeks. It won’t help. The video is just too raw. 
 
 Indeed, the airline’s initial response to the publicity already has left it covered in shame. 
 
 This is an upsetting event to all of us here at United. I apologize for having to re-accommodate these customers. — United CEO Oscar Munoz 
 
 United’s PR department first issued a statement explaining blandly that the Chicago-to-Louisville flight late Sunday was overbooked, and that “after our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate. We apologize for the overbook situation. Further details on the removed customer should be directed to authorities.” 
 
 United CEO Oscar Munoz then made things worse with a statement of Orwellian doublespeak. “This is an upsetting event to all of us here at United,” he said. “I apologize for having to re-accommodate these customers,” whatever that means. 
 
 [UPDATE: According to CNBC, Munoz followed up Monday evening with a letter to employees defending the airline’s ground staff and describing the still-unidentified passenger as “disruptive and belligerent.” He said the airline agents “were left with no choice but to call Chicago Aviation Security Officers to assist in removing the customer from the flight.” 
 
 [But Munoz, whose version of the episode appears to come from the playbook of how to dig oneself into an ever deeper hole, also undermined the argument that the flight was overbooked. He related that “after the flight was fully boarded,” gate agents “were approached by crewmembers that were told they needed to board the flight.” The implication is that the crewmembers heading to Louisville were late in arriving, that every passenger held a paid ticket and had been properly boarded, and only that only belatedly did United decide to pull passengers off the plane to make room. 
 
 [It’s unclear from United’s contract of carriage how either its rule regarding “refusal of transport” (Rule 21) or “denied boarding compensation” (Rule 25) applies to a passenger already seated and instructed to deplane to make room for a company employee rather than another paying passenger. 
 
 [Whether United had “no choice” but to forcibly eject the passenger also is questionable, as presumably the airline could have transported its crewmembers to Louisville either by road (a five-hour drive) or by chartering another aircraft. In any event, Munoz in his letter asserts that “treating our customers and each other with respect and dignity is at the core of who we are.”] 
 
 Plainly this was a botched job in countless ways and at multiple levels. The reports are that the flight was the last one to Louisville on Sunday, and that United offered passengers up to $800 plus overnight accommodations and an alternative flight leaving Monday afternoon in order to free up four seats for a flight crew needing to reach Louisville. 
 
 When you buy a plane ticket, here's what you have to agree to » 
 
 Video posted by United passenger Audra Bridges shows a passenger being forcibly removed from a flight. Video posted by United passenger Audra Bridges shows a passenger being forcibly removed from a flight. SEE MORE VIDEOS 
 
 When the voluntary offer failed, four passengers evidently were chosen at random to be involuntarily bumped. This happened after the plane had been loaded, which is certainly an unusual wrinkle in the annals of passenger treatment. One couple went quietly, but another passenger objected. Before being dragged off the plane, he reportedly identified himself as a doctor with patients to see on Monday. When he refused to go, the ground staff summoned airport police, who physically manhandled him out of his seat and dragged him, bloodied, down the aisle as several other passengers documented the event on their smartphones. The plane was delayed by two hours. 
 
 What sort of training United offers its personnel to manage such episodes isn’t known, but plainly it stinks. 
 
 What’s even more important is what this episode says about the terms and conditions of air travel in the United States. It’s in a bad way. 
 
 To begin with, the law allows air carriers to overbook flights — that is, sell more tickets than they have seats for. That’s plainly a situation that benefits the airlines almost exclusively, because it tends to ensure that every seat will be filled even at the cost of leaving some passengers behind. How many businesses do you know of that can sell you a good or service, accept payment, and then withdraw that good or service unilaterally for their own purposes — much less by force? 
 
 Passengers bumped involuntarily have rights to compensation, but the airlines have great latitude to set their own priority rules for bumping travelers. Typically it’s those paying the lowest fares, lacking membership in a frequent-flyer program, or checking in late who are most at risk. Bumpees who are going to be more than two hours late to a domestic destination are entitled to compensation of 400% of their one-way fare, up to $1,350, plus the value of their ticket. 
 
 These rules, obviously, are in dire need of upgrading to suit modern conditions. The Department of Transportation acknowledges in its outline of passenger rights that some passengers may be more amenable to voluntary bumping than others, or more flexible in their travel plans: “Almost any planeload of airline passengers includes some people with urgent travel needs and others who may be more concerned about the cost of their tickets than about getting to their destination on time.” The agency encourages airlines to “negotiate with their passengers for mutually acceptable compensation” in order to secure needed seats. 
 
 As Daniel Gross observed at Slate.com, airlines have squeezed their overbooking privilege until it screams for mercy, even as they’re consistently flying fuller planes. (Question: When was the last time you boarded a plane that had more than a small handful of middle seats open?) In the most recent boom-and-bust airline cycle, the industry “load factor” — the percentage of seats filled — bottomed out at 72.21% in February 2009, in the teeth of a crushing recession, but more recently has run in the mid-80s. That appears to be as high as it’s been in this century and may be an absolute limit, because some routes will never run at 100%.
– People are outraged after video surfaced Sunday night showing a passenger being forcibly and violently removed from a United Airlines flight that had been overbooked. As the Courier-Journal reports, four seats were needed on the Chicago-to-Louisville flight so that crew members could get to Louisville for a flight assignment Monday morning. Passengers were told that volunteers were needed to give up their seats and that they would receive $400, a hotel stay, and a flight the following day. They were told the flight wouldn't take off until four people had given up their seats, but no one volunteered. The airline then doubled the offer to $800 and still no one volunteered. A manager then came on board and used a computer to randomly select passengers who would need to leave the flight. A couple was selected and left, and then the man in the video was selected. He explained that he's a doctor and had patients he needed to see Monday morning, but was told that security would be called if he didn't exit the flight voluntarily. He said he would be calling his lawyer, and eventually, three security officials came onboard, pulled him from his seat, and dragged him down the aisle and off the plane. Passengers say everyone on the flight was appalled, and children onboard were scared. The man got back on the plane, reportedly "disoriented" and with his face bloodied, and ran to the back of the plane. A medical crew came aboard and passengers were asked to return to the gate while the plane was "tidied up." Eventually the plane departed two hours late. United has since apologized for overbooking, the Week reports, but no update has been given on the passenger who was removed. Video of the incident from two different angles is here and here.