The passenger who was left bloodied and shaken after he was forcibly removed from a Louisville-bound United Airlines flight in Chicago has been identified as 69-year-old grandfather David Dao, according to several media reports.
The Daily Mail reported that Dao is a Vietnamese-American doctor specialising in internal medicine. He is believed to be practising in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.
Reports also said that Dao had brushes with the law in the past. TMZ reported on Tuesday (Apr 11) that he even had his medical licence suspended due to multiple convictions for illegally prescribing painkillers.
The Courier-Journal said that Dao was suspended from practising in 2005 and only returned to medicine in 2015.
TMZ added that Dao was a professional poker player who has earned a total of US$234,664 in the World Series Poker Championships.
David Dao posing with a picture with his wife Teresa and their granddaughter. (Photo: Instagram/@cdaogladman)
Various media outlets and social media users had assumed the passenger to be ethnically Chinese. Internet users across China have called for a boycott of United Airlines and one Weibo user commented: “I hope Chinese people realise this reality and support domestic products.”
Over 24,000 people have signed a #ChineseLivesMatters petition calling for investigation into @united incident on @WhiteHouse website Tue pic.twitter.com/88n5rJlRBQ
— People’s Daily,China (@PDChina) April 11, 2017
An online petition with a hashtag #ChineseLivesMatters has been submitted to the White House petitions site calling for a federal investigation into the incident.
United Airlines chief executive Oscar Munoz acknowledged the incident, apologising for having to “re-accommodate” customers for the overbooked flight. However he wrote to United Airlines employees saying the crew involved followed “established procedures”.
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Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com
