So according to The Independent, a UK newspaper, “There is presently confusion about whether the man on the United flight was actually David Thanh Duc Dao, quite possibly another person entirely to David Anh Duy Dao, the man with the criminal records.”
Hmm.
And, the Dr. Dao who was pulled off the plane is seeking a court order to preserve evidence concerned with the incident.
Chicago attorneys for a Kentucky doctor dragged off a United Express flight want the airline and the city of Chicago to preserve evidence in the case.
David Dao's lawyers on Wednesday made the first moves toward a lawsuit with an emergency filing in Cook County court. They said they want to make sure the city and the airline preserve surveillance video showing passengers boarding Sunday's Flight 3411 to Louisville at O'Hare International Airport.
The attorneys want cockpit voice recordings, passenger and employee and crew lists, incident reports and the city Aviation Department's personnel reports for the police who removed Dao from the plane. The attorneys also want United's protocol for removing passengers from commercial aircraft.
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Passengers on the plane apparently didn’t agree with United CEO Oscar Munoz regarding the doctor’s removal:
Airport officials have said little about Sunday's events and nothing about Dao's behavior before he was pulled from the jet that was bound for Louisville, Kentucky. Likewise, the Chicago Aviation Department has said only that one of its employees who removed Dao did not follow proper procedures and has been placed on leave.
No passengers on the plane have mentioned that Dao did anything but refuse to leave the plane when he was ordered to do so.
The cops who then yanked him out of that seat had other options,
and at least four Senators co-signed a letter asking for more information from the airline, O’Hare, and the Chicago PD regarding the incident. The members of the airport police force who dragged Dao off the plane are not part of Chicago PD, and have limited arrest powers.
United's explanation "has been unsatisfactory, and appears to underestimate the public anger about this incident," four senators wrote in letters Tuesday to United CEO Oscar Munoz and Ginger Evans, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Aviation. "The last thing a paying airline passenger should expect is a physical altercation with law enforcement personnel after boarding, especially one that could likely have been avoided,” their letter said.
The senators directed most of their questions at Munoz, including queries about the airline's policy for bumping passengers off oversold flights, and whether it makes a difference that passengers have already boarded the plane, as happened on the United Express plane in Chicago. The senators said the incident could have been prevented with better communication or "additional incentives" — an apparent suggestion that United didn't offer passengers enough compensation to voluntarily give up their seats.
The letter was signed by the four top-ranking members of the Senate commerce committee — the Republican chairman, John Thune, the Republican aviation subcommittee chairman, Roy Blunt, and the two senior Democrats, Bill Nelson of Florida and Maria Cantwell of Washington.