Buckled in his seat at 30,000 feet, Michael Nissensohn said when he took out his phone to record himself in a video for friends, the friendly skies turned into a hostile prison.
“I was humiliated on a flight,”Nissensohn said.
The Delray Beach, Florida man was flying Friday on a JetBlue flight from Palm Beach International to New York's La Guardia airport.
During the flight, Nissensohn said the crew chief noticed he was recording video and told him he wasn’t allowed to take video or pictures during the flight.
“He got really nasty about it and said, ‘Hey listen we’re going to confiscate your phone,’” Nissensohn said.
A private pilot himself, Nissensohn said there is no law against recording on a plane and refused to hand over the phone.
“He said, ‘sir you have to leave the plane,’ and I said, ‘why?’ and then he became irate and said, ‘I’ve been fired from jobs before I can be fired from this job again,’” Nissensohn said.
Immediately upon landing, Nissensohn said that same flight crew chief told all passengers to remain seated while he approached Nissensohn and escorted him off the plane.
“They singled me out,” he said. “They made me stand up. it was quite embarrassing…it was humiliating.”
At the airport, Nissensohn said Port Authority police held him for one hour while he was questioned. He said the entire time he was calm and cooperative although he said he was never given an explanation as to what rules he had broken.
“I don’t want money,” said Nissensohn. “This is just silliness. This is basic civil rights…basic human rights. Next, they’ll have us check our phones before we get on the airplane so we can’t document them doing anything wrong.”
Nissensohn said he reached out to JetBlue. He said they apologized for what happened and also said there is no rule against taking pictures or video.
West Palm Beach-based WPTV also reached out to the airline for comment and were told the incident is being investigated.
