Former New York Sen. Al D'Amato was booted from a JetBlue flight Monday night after allegedly criticizing the captain and attempting to rally passengers against the flight crew, CNN reported.
The incident occurred after the New York-bound flight boarded in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at around 8 p.m. Monday after six delays had pushed the 1:42 p.m. departure time back by more than six hours.
Passenger Layla Delarmelina told CNN 79-year-old D'Amato became frustrated when a group of passengers refused to move to the back of the plane at the captain's request. That's when D'Amato allegedly began confronting passengers and called out the captain.
"He called them idiots and said, 'The captain needs to grow some balls,'" Delarmelina told CNN. "So they kicked him off the plane."
D'Amato was later escorted off of the plane by Broward County Sheriff's officers, but not before attempting to rally passengers against the crew's decision and encouraging them to walk out with him.
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"The decision to remove a customer from a flight is not taken lightly," JetBlue spokesman Morgan Johnston told CNN. "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's policy consulting firm Park Strategies told CNN that the former senator "left his patience at the gate" and that he later apologized for "speaking his mind." The firm also said JetBlue apologized for "overreacting," but the airline wouldn't confirm.
A native of Brooklyn, D'Amato served in the Senate for nearly two decades from 1981 to 1999.
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