Air Marshals Denied Boarding

[Joeyd6]

Air Marshal Team Denied Boarding After Airline
Gate Agent Asks for Non-Required Paperwork

By Audrey Hudson
http://washingtontimes.com/national/...3512-3352r.htm
November 20, 2006

A team of federal air marshals was prevented from protecting a recent flight from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport because a gate agent erroneously said they did not have the correct paperwork, say marshals familiar with the incident.

Police officials with the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) were called in to remove the marshals from US Airways Flight 3464 departing Nov. 8 for Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut.

"Right now we know, obviously, that federal air marshals were denied boarding," said Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS) spokesman Conan Bruce.


Marshals knowledgeable about this case and others told The Washington Times on the condition of anonymity that the gate agent demanded paperwork which is required of other law-enforcement officials, but not from federal air marshals who are on duty to protect the plane from a terrorist attack.

The flight arrived late, and passengers were immediately boarded while marshals showed their identification to the gate agent and head flight attendant. They asked to brief the captain then boarded the plane.

The marshals were first rousted from their seats to report to the jet bridge, where the gate agent demanded paperwork intended for off-duty law-enforcement officers carrying weapons.

The marshals told the gate agent that they were on mission status and the paperwork was not required, and they returned to their seats.

The marshals were called to the jet bridge a second time to speak with the captain, and the marshals then returned to their seats.

Minutes later, the marshals were called again to the jet bridge a third time, where MWAA police officers ordered the marshals to exit the plane.

Even the intervention of higher-ups in the Homeland Security Department could not persuade the airline to allow the armed law-enforcement agents aboard, and the plane departed unprotected an hour and a half late, the sources said.

Calls for comment to Republic Airlines, which owns US Airways, were not returned.

Air Marshal Director Dana Brown has pledged to rewrite the boarding rules, which marshals say are defined differently by airlines and often exposes their undercover identities.

Mr. Bruce said the agency is working with the airline to review the incident, "get the facts and find out what happened."

Asked whether similar situations have occurred in which airlines barred marshals from boarding, Mr. Bruce said "I'm sure it has in the past five years; it isn't the first incident."

"I would not say it's a regular occurrence. After we expanded the program and added so many thousands of marshals, it was a learning process for the airlines and us. I would not say it was a regular occurrence, maybe early on, but not a regular occurrence now," Mr. Bruce said.

"It is important to point out we work hand in hand with the airlines. It's a cooperative effort; that's why we have a liaison division," Mr. Bruce said. "We'll figure it out, we'll review it, but I don't want to speculate until we have all the facts."

Marshals say this isn't the first time they have encountered animosity from airlines and the flight crews whom they protect.

"There were hundreds of incidents like this," one Las Vegas air marshal said of the period shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks. "Air marshals finally stopped filing reports because the air marshal usually ends up being investigated for not being able to cooperate."

Updated reports are not looking good for US Airs/Republic. They will be kising lost of behind very soon and paying one HUGE fine. Furthermore, there is a huge issue with MWAA Police. I have a very close friend with them and they were torn apart by the brass over this. One officer on scene actully removed handcuffs from his case and threatened twice to arrest the FAM. MWAA has made multpile apologies to the agency and the specific FAM asking he take no further action against the "cop." They have also started discipline procedures against the officer.

I can't wait to go to DCA!!!!!!!!!!!

[sparty]

Unbelievable. Could you imagine the $#@&storm that would have been stirred up had the plane been hijacked after the FAMS were denied boarding? I'm sorry, but someone needs to be hung out to dry on this one - including the airline and the gate agent.

[ParadeRest]

Updated reports are not looking good for US Airs/Republic. They will be kising lost of behind very soon and paying one HUGE fine. Furthermore, there is a huge issue with MWAA Police. I have a very close friend with them and they were torn apart by the brass over this. One officer on scene actully removed handcuffs from his case and threatened twice to arrest the FAM. MWAA has made multpile apologies to the agency and the specific FAM asking he take no further action against the "cop." They have also started discipline procedures against the officer.

I can't wait to go to DCA!!!!!!!!!!!

What a tool of a "cop" to do that.

[Jynkxxie]

It's always smart to look a gift horse in the mouth. :rolleyes:

[scott715us]

What dumba**es. Being an airport cop, I would have told our US Aiways personnel that they were welcome to handle the incident on their own. Even we know that FAM's are not required to have the paperwork mentioned.

[Valor55]

An unbelievable amount of absolute stupidity on the part of airline employees. How many years have FAMs been flying and the gate agent had no idea how this works? What other security are they clueless about? What else has the airline failed to properly train its employees on? Proper maintenance? Proper passenger screening?

I can't stand flying and it's because of the routine stupidity of the people in charge of safety and other passenger relations...

[Cat_Doc]

Someone has it in for FAMs? They can't carry on a used car lot and they can't carry on the plane. :rolleyes:

[highwayman]

There is only one time when something like a hijacking will happen, there will be nobody to take action on the plane, and in the end everybody will be drowning in paperwork and reports, or wasting time in court when all that could've been avoided if the gate agents have woken up on the right side of the bed, or used more than 2% of their brain capacity.

I wonder what those gate agents were thinking: "well what do you know, look at all these people with bagdes and guns, they claim to be federal air marshalls, ummmm, no wait a minute they can't be for real, I mean who would claim to be a FAM who was not (scratch head) "

I don't know what the FAMs look like, but if I saw a team of men with badges and guns who wanted to board the plane...I would let them.

[Group9]

Like the old saying, "Once you have worked in a restaurant, you never want to eat out again", once you have worked in an airport, you never completely feel safe flying again.

The three years I was assigned to a major airport, I heard so many bone headed things airline personnel did that could have caused crashes, that hearing that one doesn't know what Air Marshals are doesn't surprise me a bit.

1. They once had a captain complain that he had trouble getting the airliner to lift off when he was departing. The airline went back and checked the manifest and found the loadmaster had overloaded the airliner by 10,000 pounds.

2. On another occasion, I was checking the manifest on an departing flight and was told there was an LEO on board. They showed me his paperwork and it didn't look right, so I went and found the guy and it was a CCW holder who had used his CCW permit as identification when checking in and who had then been handed the armed LEO paperwork. He did his best to fill it out and handed it back to them, and they went and told the captain he had an armed LEO on board. I can imagine how surprised the CCW holder would have been if there had been a problem on the flight and they had come and asked him to take care of it.

3. Not too mention how many times I have had to explain to a ticket agent exactly what paperwork she was supposed to be giving me when flying armed and being processed by a ticket agent who had no idea what to do.

I think I would have held my ground and made the airport officer arrest me. I don't like being an alpha hotel to another officer, but sometimes a situation is so detrimental to the mission that it has to be addressed and resolved right away. People may change their version of what happened, but it would have been hard to say you didn't have two Federal Air Marshals in your holding cell who you had arrested for having a firearm on a plane, later, when the fecal matter hit the rapidly oscillating blade.

[RT302]

3. Not too mention how many times I have had to explain to a ticket agent exactly what paperwork she was supposed to be giving me when flying armed and being processed by a ticket agent who had no idea what to do.

+1 Between that and other nuances of flying armed, I feel a lot safer once the plane is in the air.

[Nole795]

After what I went through with those airport staff, it does not surprise me. Hopefully some changes will be made.

[scott715us]

I have seen some dumb things during my time as an Airport officer, but I don't have a problem saying that flying IS safer now than it was pre 9/11. If you would have seen our checkpoint personnel prior to TSA coming in, you would say the same thing. Of course this is probably not the case for every airport, but I encourage you not to generalize that all airports are full of assnine workers.

[djdvine1]

That sounds ridiculous to me. I think the better question to ask here is: Why was an air marshall needed from DC to CT? lol....unless it was a jumpoff point I guess.

[MDEMT280]

That sounds ridiculous to me. I think the better question to ask here is: Why was an air marshall needed from DC to CT? lol....unless it was a jumpoff point I guess.

Why exactly WOULDN'T a FAM be needed? Does the fact that it's a domestic flight mean it's not vulnerable to hijacking? I'll remind you that all four of the airliners hijacked on 9/11 were operating domestically. And do you realize how close Reagan National Airport is to DC? If a plane fell out of the sky, there's a good chance it could hit the White House, the Capitol, or any number of major government buildings, tourist attractions, monuments, memorials...

But, no, I can't see why we'd ever want to safeguard a commercial airliner flying out of Washington, DC. :rolleyes:

[Valor55]

That sounds ridiculous to me. I think the better question to ask here is: Why was an air marshall needed from DC to CT? lol....unless it was a jumpoff point I guess.

True that isn't a known terrorist flight. I guess they must have been over staffed on the flights with terrorists and just had to ride on one of the boring non-terrorist flights.