United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz spoke Wednesday in an exclusive interview with ABC News about the passenger, who was bloodied as he was violently dragged off an overbooked flight at O'Hare International Airport.
United Airlines" parent company chief executive Oscar Munoz has told ABC's "Good Morning America' that he felt ashamed watching the video footage showing a Kentucky doctor being dragged off the jet on Sunday.
Nearly two days after the passenger, Dr David Dao was forcibly evicted from a United flight in Chicago, Munoz, in his most contrite apology yet, said: "No one should ever be mistreated this way".
The incident was caused by a "system failure", Munoz said.
On Wednesday, he said United did not give its managers "the proper tools, policies, procedures" they needed to use "common sense".
"This is on me".
"I think my reaction to most issues is to get the facts and circumstances", he said.
An online petition calling for Munoz to resign following the incident had almost 50,000 signatures as of Wednesday morning.
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Munoz called the treatment of Dr. David Dao, the passenger in question, "a truly horrific event". The interviewer then attempted to clarify he statement, asking if he meant no law enforcement officer would ever board a United flight to remove a passenger.
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.
A video of security officers pulling Dr Dao down the aisle of the overbooked Chicago flight by his arms has been viewed millions of times.
Lawyers for Dao filed an emergency request Wednesday in an IL court seeking to preserve surveillance videos, cockpit voice recordings, passenger and crew lists, and other materials related to United Flight 3411, Reuters reported.
Mr Munoz initially described Mr Dao as "disruptive and belligerent".
"I have students of mine who are crying", he said.
No passengers on the plane have mentioned that Dr Dao did anything but refuse to leave the plane when he was ordered to do so.
"The Department remains committed to ensuring that airlines comply with consumer protection regulations and will not speculate during the review process on this matter", it said.
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