Airport security officials who were caught on video in April forcibly removing a passenger from a United Airlines flight in Chicago have been disciplined. Two employees were fired and two suspended following the incident, which caused public outrage after the footage went viral, the Washington Post reports.
The fiasco became a huge public relations headache for United. In the videos, officers are seen aggressively grabbing a passenger — Dr. David Dao — who was reportedly selected at random to be removed from the overbooked flight so that his seat could be given to a United crew member.
In a quarterly report, Chicago's Office of the Inspector General found that a Chicago Department of Aviation security officer "improperly escalated the incident" and that a sergeant "made misleading statements" and "deliberately removed material facts" from employee reports on the April 9 incident aboard United Express Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville, Kentucky. The first officer and the sergeant were fired, and another two officers involved in the incident were suspended — one of whom subsequently resigned, the report said.
The security officers "mishandled a non-threatening situation," which led to the "violent" removal of the 69-year-old Dao, the inspector general's report said. "The use of excessive force caused the passenger to hit his face on an armrest, resulting in a concussion, a broken nose and the loss of two teeth," a news release accompanying the report stated.
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