US sports star wants to ask flight attendant for ice cubes for his son but was led out of the aircraft in handcuffs

It's not the first time that United Airlines has hit the headlines because passengers have had to leave one of its aircraft involuntarily, but this time its reputation could suffer particularly badly. Last Saturday, Terrell Davis, a legend of the North American Football League NFL, was hit, and his ejection was apparently unfounded.

The airline has since apologised after the two-time Super Bowl champion was ‘wrongly handcuffed on a flight from Denver to California, according to reports including the BBC. The reason was an accusation by a flight attendant that the 51-year-old had hit him.

However, Davis portrays the encounter between the two as completely non-violent. He published his version of the story on Instagram: he was on board with his wife and three children. One of his sons politely asked the flight attendant for a cup of ice cubes. However, the flight attendant did not respond. Davis then ‘lightly tapped’ the flight attendant on the arm, whereupon he shouted: ‘Don't hit me!’

The United employee then quickly disappeared into the front of the aircraft.‘I was confused, as were the passengers in front of me who witnessed the incident,’ Davis wrote on Instagram.‘I thought nothing more of it than that this employee was incredibly rude and simply wrong in his accusations that I had hit him.’

At the destination airport in California, the passengers were then asked to remain seated. Six officers from the FBI and local security authorities boarded the plane, handcuffed Davis in front of his wife and three children and removed him from the aircraft.All the other passengers watched in silence, some of them filmed the scene with their smartphones.

A United Airlines spokeswoman told the BBC that the company had apologised to Davis. "This is clearly not the kind of travel experience we want to provide."

We have placed the flight attendant on leave while we thoroughly investigate the matter, and we are reviewing our policies regarding incidents like this.

However, the ex-Denver Broncos running back, named the NFL's most valuable player in 1998, was still awaiting a personal apology from the airline on Wednesday. The company had been in contact with his lawyer, ‘but I haven't heard anything directly from them,’ Terrell said, according to US television station CNN.

Francis Tawiah (Duisburg, Germany)