Al D’Amato kicked off plane in Florida

Former U.S. Sen. Al D’Amato is famous for his passionate speeches and record-setting filibusters in the U.S. Senate, including one in 1986 that lasted nearly 24 hours.

On Tuesday, the former Republican lawmaker and Lido Beach resident became famous again, after video of him delivering a tirade surfaced online after he was escorted from a JetBlue flight in Florida for reportedly complaining about a lengthy delay.

According to the New York Post, the flight from Ft. Lauderdale to JFK was scheduled to depart at 1:40 p.m. on Monday but didn’t take off until 8 p.m.

Passengers became even more upset when the flight crew asked those who paid extra for legroom to switch seats because of “weight and balance issues,” the Post reported. D’Amato was sitting toward the back of the plane — in a seat with sparse legroom — and began shouting “make them move,” which encouraged other passengers to join him and march up and down the aisle.

The outburst prompted the crew to ask D’Amato to leave, and at least one passenger appears to walk out with him when he was escorted by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office.

“They’re throwing me off the plane because I complained about what they were doing,” D’Amato told passengers in one of the videos posted on Facebook. “We can still speak in this country. What you’re doing to me — I’ll make an appeal to all you people. You want to know what? Stand up for what’s right and walk out with me. That’s the only thing they’ll know.”

Several passengers can be heard booing after D’Amato — who served from 1981 to 1999 and earned the nickname Senator Pothole for his constituent services — is escorted from the plane by law enforcement.

“That’s not right in any way — I thought we had freedom of speech,” a passenger can be heard saying.

“Are we in America?” one passenger asked.

“No, we’re in Florida,” another responded.

A spokesman for JetBlue, Morgan Johnston, could not immediately be reached for comment.

In a statement to Policy.Mic, Johnston said that the decision to remove a customer from a flight is not taken lightly.

"Out of respect for our customers' privacy, we don't share customer details, but I can confirm that a customer was removed from Flight 1002," he told the online news site. "If a customer is causing a conflict on the aircraft, it is standard procedure to ask the customer to deplane, especially if the crew feels the situation runs a risk of escalation in-flight."

D’Amato, a columnist for the Herald and the founder of Park Strategies LLC, a public policy and business development lobbying firm, was not available for comment.

“Anyone who knows Senator D'Amato knows he speaks his mind — but in this case he spoke after a long and demanding trip to Florida to visit an ailing friend, a five-hour airport ground delay, additional delays as the crew sought to deal with weight and balance issues and then sleep deprivation,” a spokesman said in a statement. “JetBlue has apologized to the senator for over reacting and the senator apologized for speaking his mind at a time when he clearly had left his patience at the gate.”