United Airlines’ CEO on Wednesday tried to stem the damage from one of the company’s biggest public-relations disasters, vowing that what happened to Dr. David Dao — who was dragged screaming off a flight in Chicago — would “never happen again.”

“You saw us at a bad moment and this can never, will never happen again on a United Airlines flight. That’s my premise and my promise,” top exec Oscar Munoz told ABC’s “Good Morning America” in his first interview since the weekend fiasco that has sparked international outrage.

Dao, a 69-year-old Kentucky physician, was captured on video Sunday being hauled off a plane by his arms by security personnel at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. Dao was bloodied and hospitalized.

Munoz told ABC that he felt “shame” when he saw the damning video that has since gone viral.

“As I think about our business and our people, the first thing I think is important to say is to apologize to Dr. Dao, his family, the passengers on that flight, our customers, our employees. That is not who our family at United is,” he said.

Munoz’s comments are in stark contrast to the tone-deaf memo he originally sent to United staff, in which he called Dao “disruptive and belligerent” and said employees went “above and beyond.”

He began to backtrack Tuesday — the same day United’s stock plummeted to the tune of $257 million — when he apologized in a statement and called the episode, which is being investigated by the federal Department of Transportation, “truly horrific.”

When asked about his internal memo, Munoz said, “I think my first reaction to most issues is to get the facts and circumstances and my initial words fell short of truly expressing what we were feeling. And that’s something I learned from.”

He added, “That shame and embarrassment was pretty palpable for a lot of our family.”

Dao was one of four passengers selected at random for removal from the overbooked Kentucky-bound flight. When Dao refused to give up his seat, security members from the Chicago Department of Aviation dragged him off, the video shows.

Munoz said the company is reviewing its policies and said “the use of law enforcement aboard an aircraft has to be looked at very carefully.”

He told “GMA” that if a situation like this should ever arise again, “We are not going to put a law enforcement official to take them off … to remove a booked, paid, seated passenger. We can’t do that.”

Asked what went wrong during the incident, Munoz said, “It was a system failure.”

“We have not provided our front-line supervisors and managers with the proper tools, policies and procedures that allow them to use their common sense,” he said. “They all have an incredible amount of common sense and this issue could have been solved by that. That’s on me I have to fix that and I think that’s something we can do.”

Dao’s lawyer said that the doctor, a father of five, is recovering from his injuries at a Chicago hospital.

Munoz said he and his team have been unsuccessful in their attempts to reach out to Dao.

“I do look forward to a time when I can … as much as I’ve been able to apologize directly to him for what happened,” Munoz said.

When asked whether he believes Dao was at fault in the situation, Munoz responded, “No, he can’t be. He was a paying passenger sitting on our seat in our aircraft and no one should be treated that way, period.”

As for calls from the public asking Munoz to resign, he said, “No, I was hired to make United better and we’ve been doing that and that’s what I’ll continue to do.”