Brett Arends wants Oscar Munoz to investigate and deliver a report in 72 hours, not 36 hours as originally written.

United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz woke up Monday morning to a massive leadership test.

And he flunked — big time.

Munoz had to respond to the shocking video footage of a passenger being violently ejected from one of his flights Sunday night. The video, shot by two passengers on their cellphones and shared on Twitter, went viral. The passenger was thrown off the plane simply because United had overbooked.

Munoz’s public response was a piece of pusillanimous lawyer-crafted claptrap that was pitiful, inadequate and insulting.

The incident was “upsetting to all of us here at United,” he said. He apologized “for having to re-accommodate these customers.” His “team” was conducting a “detailed review” to “further address and resolve this situation.”

Read:‘Re-accommodate’ is United’s euphemism for forcibly dragging passenger off an airplane

Memo to Munoz: Are you kidding me?

Nobody cares if this was upsetting to the people at United. How about the upset to the paying customer — apparently a middle-aged doctor — who was dragged from your plane like this?

Nobody buys your insulting euphemism “re-accomodate.” You were throwing this guy off the plane, not for anything he did, but because you had deliberately sold more tickets than you had seats to make some extra bucks.

Twitter/United Airlines

When Max Bialystock pulls that trick in “The Producers,” he gets thrown in jail.

And nobody wants to hear that you’re shunting this off to your “team.” They’re not the ones getting paid millions a year.

Here’s what Munoz should have said instead on Monday morning:

“I have just seen the video from Flight 3411, and like all of you I am shocked. I have immediately cleared my calendar of all other commitments, and I am going to our company’s facilities at O’Hare to conduct a personal inquiry. All personnel involved in this incident will be reporting to me in person immediately. I am going to find out how this happened, who did what and why. I notice that the passenger’s violent removal was conducted by law enforcement personnel, not by United staff, and I am going to demand a full explanation from the relevant authorities as well. Meanwhile, I apologize personally to the passenger, to all others on the flight, to our customers and to the American public. I expect to issue a further report within 72 hours.”

(I initially wrote 36 hours, but on reflection, 72 hours — 3 days — makes more sense.)

If Munoz’s lawyers think that statement opens them up to — eek! — “legal liabilities,” I have some news for them.

The video is all the evidence an attorney is going to need. You’re going to be writing a big fat check anyway. Showing good faith now is going to help more than it could hurt.

United Airlines passenger is violently removed from a flight

Oh, and if if you’re worried about legal costs, wait till you see the business costs. We’re just heading into peak summer travel. How many lost customers would you like?

United’s revenues come to about $36 billion a year, or roughly $100 million a day. The financial risk of lost sales surely vastly outweighs any potential liability.

This is what happens when a leader lets lawyers and weak advisers write his statement.

Real leaders remember that the lawyers work for them, not the other way around. If it were up to the company lawyers, nobody would ever do anything.

You can’t handle corporate spin like this in the age of Twitter and Facebook and smartphone videos. While Munoz and his advisers were tinkering with this pabulum on their laptops, the video clips were going everywhere, and they are a public relations disaster.

How much damage will United suffer? The stock market seemed to brush it off. Shares UAL, +0.14% actually rose 0.91% on Monday. But I’m not so sure. Online videos are far more powerful than the powerful realize.

Read:Why you, too, could get dragged off a plane if the airline overbooks your flight