Federal Air Marshals Are Missing on Most Passenger Flights

Of the 28,000 commercial airline flights that take to the skies on an average day in the United States, fewer than 1 percent are protected by on-board, armed Federal Air Marshals, a nationwide CNN investigation has found. That means a terrorist or other criminal bent on taking over an aircraft would be confronted by a trained air marshal on as few as 280 daily flights, according to more than a dozen federal air marshals and pilots interviewed by CNN.

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• Federal
• Air
• Marshals
• Missing
• 1%
• Las
• Vegas
• Budget
• $720
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• Griffin
• CNN
• David
• Mackett

[astranine]

Do we really need air marshals on domestic flights? I would rather not have an armed overworked, underpaid, disgruntled cop on the plane with me while cruising at 30,000 feet.

[vjm007]

My TSA friend told me 65% screeners fail tests w. weapons getting through...While women CAN be fierce, strong, do u think that money should be spent on spending years of martial arts training on a woman in her 50's? (yes not all FA's are 50 year old women, lets face facts, most are). TKD is crap,so I know u are clueless to use that as an example. Besides, TKD loses VS a knife, fork, broken glass. I think airports overseas w. higher hijack threats r where marshals (note ONE L) are assigned...

[capricornaries]

The fact they're missing out is that Air Marshals only travel on TARGETED flights. And that makes the figure about 1% or less. You heard the numbers. 28,000 flights in a day? It is not impossible. Of the figures listed, Air Marshals only travel on specific flights based on information received or based on statistics that a certain flight may be in danger of hijacking and other terrorist acts. This can also be due to the fact that certain 'suspicious' passengers have been targeted before flight.

[Planeguy13]

The whole Air Marshall program is crap. Air Marshall's shouldn't be trained to deal with gun's onboard because the TSA should be secure enough not to miss 90% of dangerous weapons. So basically Air Marshalls are being trained to deal with another government agencies screw ups. IMO, the Air Marshall program should be disolved and that money should go to training F/As in martial arts/twa kwon do. F/As are on EVERY single flight with more than 19 passengers.

[vjm007]

I read that the marshals recently hired a bunch of young college grads, TSA screeners, and a few airline employees as marshals. So I guess when we fly we'll be protected by only the best.

[BLUESCLUES222]

wow then whats the point of hiring air marshals is they don't even use them...