A video emerges of a man being forcibly removed from his seat because the flight was overbooked.
Videos showing a man being violently removed from a United Airlines flight have provoked a public outcry on social media.
The footage taken from inside the airliner shows a man being violently pulled out of his seat and dragged down the aisle as passengers prepared to take off from Chicago to Louisville on Sunday evening.
The airline in question – United – has acknowledged that the man’s only apparent crime was that the flight was overbooked and he refused to leave voluntarily.
A 50-second clip on Twitter of the incident has been re-tweeted 16,000 times since it was posted that day.
Jayse D Ansbach , who posted the footage tweeted: « #United overbooked and wanted four of us to volunteer to give up our seats for personnel that needed to be at work the next day. »
« No one volunteered, so United decided to choose for us. They chose an Asian doctor and his wife. »
« The doctor needed to work at the hospital the next day, so he refused to volunteer, » Mr Ansbach added.
« Ten minutes later, the doctor runs back into the plane with a bloody face, clings to a post in the back, chanting, « I need to go home. »
Another passenger Audra D. Bridges , who posted a video of the incident on Facebook, that has been viewed over 400,000 times, wrote: « Please share this video. We are on this flight. United airlines overbooked the flight. »
« They randomly selected people to kick off so their standby crew could have a seat.
« This man is a doctor and has to be at the hospital in the morning, » she added.
« He did not want to get off. We are all shaky and so disgusted. »
Thousands of Facebook comments have been posted about what happened.
One person wrote : « This is infuriating »
Another posted : « OMG So sad to see someone being treated like this. I wont fly United ever again. »
But another felt the video raised some unanswered questions.
« There has to be more to this story, » he said.
« Usually when a flight is overbooked they offer free flight vouchers to those willing to change flights or go on standby and a couple of people will jump at those as their travel plans may be flexible. »
« I feel like this specific incident HAS to be deeper than what we are seeing in this video, » he added.
In a statement United airlines told the BBC: « 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, » the airline added.
By Rozina Sini, BBC’s UGC and Social News team
