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CHICAGO — Video of police officers dragging a passenger from an overbooked United Airlines flight sparked an uproar Monday on social media, and a spokesman for the airline insisted that employees had no choice but to contact authorities to remove the man.

As the flight waited to depart from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, officers could be seen grabbing the screaming man from a window seat, pulling him across the armrest and dragging him down the aisle by his arms.

The airline was trying to make room for four of its employees on the Sunday evening flight to Louisville, Ky.

Other passengers on Flight 3411 are heard saying, “Please, my God,” “What are you doing?” “This is wrong” and “Busted his lip.”

Passenger Audra Bridges posted the video on Facebook. Her husband, Tyler Bridges, said United offered $400 and then $800 vouchers and a hotel stay for volunteers to give up their seats. When no one volunteered, a United manager came on the plane and announced that passengers would be chosen at random.

“We almost felt like we were being taken hostage,” Tyler Bridges said. “We were stuck there. You can’t do anything as a traveler. You’re relying on the airline.”

When airline employees named four customers who had to leave the plane, three of them did so. The fourth person refused to move, and police were called, United spokesman Charlie Hobart said.

“We followed the right procedures,” Hobart said in a phone interview.

The passenger told the manager that he was a doctor who needed to see patients in the morning, Bridges said.

The Associated Press was unable to confirm the passenger’s identity.