Watch: Former Sen. Alfonse D'Amato Escorted Off Plane For Complaining

Videos posted to social media Monday night show former Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, a Long Island Republican, being escorted off an airplane and calling for his fellow passengers to join him.

According to the New York Post, D'Amato was on Jet Blue Flight 1002 from Fort Lauderdale to JFK, but the flight was delayed for numerous hours. At one point, airline staff asked passengers who paid extra for more leg room to move for weight and balancing issues.

That prompted D'Amato to start chanting, "Make them move," which fellow passengers took up. The outburst prompted the airline to remove D'Amato.

"They're throwing me off the plane because I complained about what they were doing," D'Amato says on one of the videos.

"We can still speak in this country," he says.

Jet Blue said that it could not give out the name of any passengers removed from flights out of respect for customers' privacy. However, a spokesperson did confirm that a passenger was removed from the flight.

"The decision to remove a customer from a flight is not taken lightly," the company said in a statement. "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."

Patch has reached out to D'Amato for comment.

D'Amato, an Island Park native who now lives in Lido Beach, served as a U.S. senator from 1981 until he was unseated by Chuck Schumer in 1999. Prior to that, he served as the supervisor of the Town of Hempstead.

Photo: Layla D/Twitter