The busy spring break travel period is underway. Millions of Americans are expected to take to the skies, potentially leading to traffic, long lines, crowds and maybe even an unruly passenger.
Unruly passenger incidents peaked in 2021 with nearly 6,000 cases, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, and the numbers have decreased since then. The U.S. Air Marshal Service is in charge of handling those unruly passengers — or at least, that’s supposed to be the case.
There have been over 300 incidents already documented so far in 2024. During one incident in February, a man had to be subdued mid-flight when he tried opening the plane’s emergency door on a flight from Albuquerque to Chicago, according to witnesses. However, it wasn’t an air marshal who brought him down. Passengers and crew members wrestled with the man, duct taped his legs and threw flex cuffs on him.
“We always travel in teams,” Sonya LaBosco, the executive director of the Air Marshal National Council said. “So, we’re going to always have teams. What we would have done is subdue that individual very quickly.”
LaBosco said air marshals are not flying on domestic flights right now. The Biden administration has sent many air marshals to the U.S. southern border to help with administrative work.
“I have to tell you, it’s quite alarming and disgraceful that we’ve left the American people alone in the skies for this type of deployment,” LaBosco said.
“They are still on the border,” LaBosco said. “They are still doing non-law enforcement support personnel only duties on the border. And we’re still following the National Capital Region individuals that were in the area for Jan. 6, 2021.”
LaBosco claims air marshals are handing out water bottles and picking up Uber Eats orders at the border.
“You name it, we’re a jack of all trades down there,” LaBosco said. “Anything that you would have someone do that’s a support personnel, that’s picking up supplies, walking around. They may walk around and make sure a gate is secure somewhere or check a box for a delivery, like if someone came in and out and made a delivery to the border patrol station.”
According to LaBosco, air marshals’ only law enforcement duties while in flight currently consist of “Quiet Skies” missions.
“We are on flights today, following individuals that were in the National Capital Region on Jan. 6, nothing has changed, and that program is still active and going,” LaBosco said.
And who are they following? According to LaBosco, they’re following people who flew into Washington, D.C., around the time of Jan. 6, 2021 — even if those people had nothing to do with the Capitol riots or have never been convicted of a crime.
“It’s random people to include children, teenagers, the elderly, paraplegics,” LaBosco said. “Anyone that you can imagine that you see on a regular basis traveling in the airport, that’s who we’re following. We haven’t come up with one bad guy yet. We haven’t come up with one case where someone was trying to take over an aircraft. All those cases were without air marshals on board right. These flight incidents and these rage incidents that you’re seeing, you don’t see any intervention from any law enforcement on any of those planes.”
Since there’s no law enforcement to help intervene on flights, if there’s an emergency, what happens if there’s an unruly passenger situation?
According to LaBosco, if people are traveling with a group, talk to each other before boarding the plane and come up with a plan in case something happens on board the aircraft. Be aware of the surroundings and locate all the exits on board.
”Make sure you hit your call button if you see something suspicious,” LaBosco said. “Give the flight crew an opportunity. You know they’re safety professionals. They’re there to do a lot more than just serve drinks.”
If it’s necessary to take someone down, try to communicate with other passengers, and get them to help restrain an unruly person.
“There’s a lot of things they have in the aircraft to try to you subdue someone,” LaBosco said. “And don’t be afraid to do it quickly because you can’t make any mistakes at 35,000 feet because there’s too much at risk.”
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, recently introduced the No FAMs at the Border Act, a bill that would put air marshals back in the skies. LaBosco said she supports the measure because air marshals are needed on planes to keep Americans safe.
“That was a very scary flight,” LaBosco said. “But air marshals should be on those flights. We would have been on that flight, that’s a flight we normally would have been on, but because we’re at the border or following Jan. 6 people, we’re not doing any of our regular duties.”
Straight Arrow News reached out to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for comment.
“Contrary to recent media reports, federal air marshals continue to deploy on flights throughout the world protecting travelers based on TSA’s risk-based methodology,” a spokesperson said. “Federal air marshals provide mission critical security throughout the transportation domain to maintain the security of the homeland. Temporary deployments to the southwest border have not affected TSA’s aviation security operations.”
