US won't punish United over passenger-dragging incident
None
Federal officials decided not to punish United Airlines over an infamous incident in which a passenger was dragged off an overcrowded plane.
The Transportation Department said it found no evidence that United violated David Dao's civil rights in the April 9 incident in Chicago. There was also not enough evidence that the airline violated rules regarding bumping passengers to take the case further, the department said.
A Transportation Department lawyer told United about the decision in a May 12 letter but didn't make the matter public. An advocacy group, Flyers Rights, released the letter on Wednesday after obtaining it through an open-records request.
Paul Hudson, the president of Flyers Rights, criticized the lack of penalties against United and questioned how the Transportation Department could conduct an investigation so quickly. He called the manhandling of 69-year-old Dao "egregious in every sense of the word."
