United Airlines ‘forces disabled man to crawl down plane aisle’

‘Humiliated’ ... D'Arcee Neal said it was humiliating to crawl down the aisle of the plane. Picture: Facebook

A disabled man was forced to crawl through the aisle of a plane after airline staff allegedly failed to offer him assistance when the flight landed.

D’Arcee Neal said he waited for a flight attendant to help him off the United Airlines plane when it landed at Reagan National Airport in Washington D.C., but no one came.

He said he desperately needed to use the rest room, so he crawled from his mid-cabin seat to the door.

“I mean, it’s humiliating,” he told a local NBC News affiliate. “No one should have to do what I did.”

Mr Neal said the airline should have provided an aisle-sized wheelchair and an attendant to help him get off the plane.

A United Airlines spokesman said a wheelchair was waiting for Mr Neal at the gate, but it was accidentally removed before he got off the plane.

“During the deplaning process, we made a mistake about the need for the chair and it was removed from the area,” the airline told the Daily News. “When we realised the error, we returned the chair to the gate, but it arrived too late to assist Mr Neal.”

Mr Neal has worked as a disability advocate for years in nonprofits and now works for the federal government. He was in San Francisco for a meeting with the car-hire company Uber to discuss accessibility policies.