Airport security involved with United Airlines incident earlier this year fired

October 18th, 2017  |  Travel

Back in April of this year Dr. David Dao was physically dragged off of a United Airlines plane because the flight was over booked and Dao refused to give up his seat, as he was on route to visit his patients.

Fast forward 7 months later and two out of the four security officers involved have been fired by the Chicago Department of Aviation. One of the fired security officers was involved with an attempted cover-up of the April incident. The other two officers were suspended, one of which has since resigned.

A report put forth by the Office of Inspector General stated that as a result of the investigation, the Aviation Department has fired an officer who "improperly escalated the incident" and a sergeant who was involved in removing facts from a report. The report went onto say that the office's investigation found three security officers and a sergeant had used excessive force, and "made misleading statements and deliberately removed material facts from their reports" on the April 9 incident. The report did not name the officers.

Since April, Dao has come to an undisclosed agreement with United Airlines, and discussions regarding passenger rights have been brought to the forefront of airline conversation. Thanks to the rise of camera phones, incidents such as these do not go undocumented, and are able to provide evidence that can help spark changes to the system.