my dad was a commercial pilot for United
my uncle was also and my cousin is a commercial pilot ! so have a lot of pilots in the family
my dad was also a jet fighter pilot in Korea so was my uncle
quite a few pilots are hired out of the military so are capable and trained for situations that might come up
pretty much all my dads buddies and he say that some air marshals are a joke he used to on more than one occasion have them get drunk and say stuff they should not to the flight attendants etc…
his answer of course was let us carry a gun ! like he has told people trust me the pilot wants to make it home safe also ! and I know more about the aircraft than a flight marshal does ! and many have been in the military
also that terrorist is going to have to come through that door to get to me ! the air marshal in the back may or may not be able to react to the situation of 2-5 hijackers ! that somehow got armed themselves ! but coming up to a door where he can see out and the hijacker can not see in ! they are in a bad position the pilots in the strong position
when people have said what if they have hostages and will kill them ?
sadly better a few than the whole plane ! and who ever the plane might come down on !
if they are willing to kill one they are willing to kill all !!! and must at all costs never be allowed into the cockpit
so arm and give extra training to the pilots
also secure and armor the cockpit areas so they can not be penetrated that alone would have stopped 911 attacks
some say arm the cockpit and have a one person room for the flight between the pilot and the passengers and this guy will also be armed so if for some freak reason they get passed the first door they will be met with resistance and will have to do that again ! to the cockpit
How quickly people forget those 3 planes hitting our buildings and the 4th ending up in a field.
I am also an airline pilot and will echo others frustrations with the implementation of some of the programs. The FFDO program has its issues, but it is the best we have and while I want to see improvements made in the worst possible way, I’m thankful to all the FFDOs that carry on mission status every day.
Regarding the FAMs, when they will choose to get involved in a situation is not really public knowledge and will be entirely officer/situation dependent. They are there to prevent a terrorist takeover of an aircraft, not to be an airplane cop. As a result all of the data that Duncan has stated about arrest records and cost is immaterial. The only numbers that are important is the fact that there has not been a successful takeover of an airliner in the US since 911. Deterrence is a funny thing and it is hard to tell if it is working or it is just luck. The fact is that not all pilots are (or are cut out to be) FFDOs and not all (actually very very few) countries like the idea of airline pilots bringing guns into their countries, so that in itself is reason enough to have the FAM service. Like all other aspects of aviation security/safety, it is a layer of screens. Have enough screens and the chances of things getting though are slim.
The fact that their are many issues within the FAMS means that things should be changed, not that the service should be gotten rid of.
The LAST thing that should happen is to let the airlines be in charge of security. The management at the airlines today care only about cost, the lowest cost possible, and anything that will drive up that cost will receive lip service at best. Look at the tragic results of Colgan 3407.
I think it would be safe to say that all law enforcement agencies have had problems with some of their officers/agents at one time or another. But to suggest that those agencies be abolished because of those few instances is ridiculous. I work for one of the largest police departments in the country. The vast majority (99.9%) IMHO are the absolute best individuals on this planet yet if you listen to the newsmedia, my agency is staffed by thugs, criminals, you name it. So to think that the FAMS be disbanded because of the actions of a few border on lunacy. I support the FAMS and thank them for the job they do. And I never fly because I frankly, am afraid of flying. If I could, I’d drive to Europe,lol. Point is I have no allegiance to the FAMS. I just appeciate the job they do. It’s really easy for a naysayer like Duncan who probably hasn’t a clue as to what he’s talking about, make those statements.
I can’t say one way or another whether the money spent on the FAMs is worthwhile, but I agree that the people “analyzing” the program in this article don’t seem to take the deterrence value into account, and that is a big mistake.
The mere possibility that there are FAMs - their mere existence in significant numbers - makes it yet another obstacle for a hijacker or bomber to contend with and think about before trying anything. That isn’t something that’s immediately visible or even measurable, but it is definitely a real effect.
So maybe the FAMs are worth it or maybe they’re not, but you do have to account for the unseen effects they have.
They are (in theory) an unobservable deterrent, something that is supposed to provide a deterrent on every flight by the mere possibility that they might be there. That is most definitely a real deterrent effect, the only question is how much. It’s just like carrying concealed in public - you’re protecting yourself, but there is a benefit to society as a whole in allowing concealed carry because criminals don’t know who is armed and who isn’t, so they have to assume there is a chance that any given person will be armed.
seems like armed flight crew would be a cheaper and probably more effective way to secure the plane.
has anyone been shot by an air marshall in recent history?
He was apparently crazy and claimed to have a bomb, when he ran for the plane the air marshals shot and killed him. It turns out he didn’t have a bomb.
The idea of training flight attendants seems like a horrible idea to me, the FAMS are trained to a very high level of accuracy and expected to maintain that level. I won’t even get into the costs to the airlines to outfit all of the flight attendants and train them but ticket prices are bad enough as it is. The FAMS shoot over 5000 rounds in their initial training and have over 4 months of LE training to be able to do their job, and if at the end of that they don’t meet the shooting standards then they don’t get hired. Try that with an airline and the stockholders would shit themselves.
Add to that the idea that FAMS are basically anonymous on the flights, if the flight attendants are packing then a terrorist will know the exact position of every threat on the flight before they start they’re attack. The flight attendants would also have to keep doing they’re job (serving meals and drinks, getting harassed by drunks) and still have the SA to look for threats. It doesn’t really seem feasible.
If we did not have the FAMs, the industry would have had to have their own version in order to promote a sense of security and keep their seats filled. I hardly consider it a waste, though, because we can also consider our expense in nuclear weapons as a wasteful because we haven’t blown anyone up since WWII.
I, for one, sometimes wonder if any of the passengers on the plane I’m on are FAMs. It is a comforting thought, but realize there are far too many flights for them to cover.
I can say if they were in place chances are 911 would never had happened ! that would be the question to pose to that guy ?
part of me also thinks the problem is how the bad guys get onto the plane !
the agents at the gates are the real jokes these days and how the screen people !
they need to beef up the security for the ramp rats the security for the ground crew that bring in items is not what it should be etc…
sadly the airline industry has become the bus station ! it needs a major clean up and overhaul not just the FAM service but from the second you get in and approach the airport it shouldbe overhauled
lucky its still the safest form of travel and accidents are very very rare but sadly when they happen its tragic
you make some very excellent points.
i’ve heard being an air marshall is the shittiest job ever. you can’t read, you can’t listen to music, you can’t sleep.
honestly i don’t really think a 9/11 style hijacking could happen again. Any nut with a boxcutter would be beaten by 30 or so people instead of allowed to proceed.
I don’t really have a comment on the AMS but Duncan really seems to try to do what he thinks is best and what his voters want him to do. His dad was that way and personally tried to update people when things were going on in Nam.
No Flight Attendant at my airline(15k+ FA’s) would ever serve a FAM alcohol. They all know who they are and where they are sitting and they know NOT to serve them alcohol. If an FA ever served a FAM alcohol that FA would be fired on the spot and the FAM would probably be met by the police at the destination.
Thats like a cop drinking on the job and being drunk pulling somebody over or arresting somebody while intoxicated.
To the point that flight attendants should be trained to carry guns. Its a terrible idea. Most of our FA’s are old as shit or not mentally stable enough to raise a child let alone carry a gun. There is a reason we dont even let the flight attendants into the cockpit whenever we can avoid it.
While we are on the air marshal subject, do they still carry the Sig 229 and if so, why such a big gun? Wouldn’t a smaller gun like the 239 make more sense? And how do they carry and also conceal such a large weapon? What type of holster do they use? Crossdraw, SOB, AIWB? Anyone know?
I don’t know the figures, but the amount of money we spend on the DOD per dead insurgent is probably enough to make your head explode. There were only a handful of FAM prior to 9/11, and all were on international flights…which, I’m sure, had nothing to do with why the terrorists picked domestic flights to hijack.
The goal of the FAMS is not to be a sky cop…it’s to keep the plane from being turned into a guided missile. If they had to constantly make arrests on flights it would be stupid easy to smoke them out with bad behavior and then take them out to take over the plane. It would be like getting pissed off that an undercover cop doesn’t write enough speeding tickets. That’s not his job. That’s why it’s an utterly stupid metric.
Congressmen are MORONS and generally haven’t the foggiest idea what the hell they are talking about. Why anyone takes them seriously given their long history of abuses and transgressions is beyond my comprehension.
Dude…have you seen what most private security looks like? Good security is expensive.
I agree, however, this wasn’t my reason for starting this thread. My intention isn’t to defame the FAMs or anything of that nature but I do think the cost VS benefit is a real question to be asking of the American taxpayers.
The costs of 9/11 have vastly exceeded the costs of trying to bring the FAMS to a reasonable staffing level. Part of the article complains about FAMS who have been caught on bad behavior…but that’s what happens when you take a tiny, very elite organization and give it a mandate to expand almost 100 times its size ASAP following an event where a bunch of smelly jackasses took over planes and turned them into guided missiles.
It would be a hell of a lot cheaper to let people like me carry on the plane to kinetically pacify jackasses who want to blow up planes and kill people, but I’m not holding my breath for it to happen.
…and have to lower certain quality standards because you can’t find enough qualified candidates.
I disagree. Someone would have to administer such a program, and that involves an agency, huge increases in insurance premiums and legal reserves, among other things. Besides which, I really don’t want you carrying on a commercial airliner – no offense intended. The TSA has a hard enough time with qualified applicants and yet some people think the general public should be allowed to carry on an airliner. Anyone besides me see a problem with that idea? Want to carry on an airliner? Go be a FAM.
Well, I know for a fact that I can perform better on most quals than a large number of the people who can currently carry a gun on an airliner.
…and I can also pass the old FAMS qual.
I’m not your average member of the “general public”.
We have people on this site who have spent their adult lives killing terrorists for Uncle Sam…and yet they can’t have so much as a pair of nailclippers on the plane because they don’t have a badge.
The notion of no-badge-no-carry! is objectively kind of stupid. Yes, a program that let “regular joes” carry on planes could be very difficult to administer…but part of the difficulty results from the abject stupidity that surrounds the way government views guns and anyone who doesn’t have their stamp of approval (namely a badge) being in possession of them.
