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Are you allowed to sleep on flights? Do you essentially land, spend the night and go home again? What are somethings you aren't allowed to do? Best advice for traveling?
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Oct 26, 2015 06:34
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Does FAM authority (or however that would be worded) start as soon as they're on the plane, or is it a "plane must be moving" deal or... actually, what authority does a FAM have? Same as an on-duty cop in being able to arrest or anything like that?
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Oct 26, 2015 07:30
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Since you flew so often, do you have any horrible stories of turbulence or storms that made you queasy?
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Oct 26, 2015 14:47
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Dick Bass posted:You probably can't exactly answer this directly, but what exactly would an Air Marshall do if they happened to be on a flight such as Air France 8969? We would kill them or be killed taking down as many as we can, really. I say a lot of bad poo poo about the FAM service, but I have to reiterate that I would not knock their training. If you ask other Federal Officers/agents, I'm pretty sure that any that know the FAM service at all would say their training wasn't anything like what we do in terms of shooting and fighting. quote:You've said that FAMs are on flagged flights, as opposed to being randomly assigned. When you are on your flight, do you know ahead of time why it was flagged or who you should be looking out for? And, if you're able to answer, what type of situation would be cause to assign a FAM on board? This is all something that I can't really speak to. When I say "flagged" it means the country of origin - for instance, US flagged carriers like United or Delta vice foreign flagged carriers like Singapore airlines. quote:Is this something that ever happens? Someone catching sight of an FAM's weapon and freaking out. I suspect a lot of people wouldn't exactly stay calm. It actually happened to me once. I was extremely tired on a return trip and went into the overhead to get something, and a sharp eyed old man caught site of my weapon. He discreetly told the flight attendant though, who spoke to me and then told him what was going on. I was lucky that he didn't flip his poo poo, but I could imagine it would happen. quote:This probably ties in with the reason why two seperate countires FAM's wouldn't be on the same flight. Especially if they weren't aware of each other. This is a good question though and would like to hear OP's take That would be a worst-case scenario at that point, but: quote:I imagine that this is simply a jurisdiction issue. You're not going to have an American air marshal on a French flagged carrier just like you don't have the French National Police patrolling NYC. ...is a very good point. quote:Are you allowed to sleep on flights? It varies from destination to destination, but in general yeah, we didn't have much downtime, which is a major complaint a lot of us have. That's kind of a broad question - do you mean limitations in a country or place we are visiting? Use melatonin to get yourself on a decent sleep schedule. Drink as much water as you can possibly drink once you get off a flight, and work out immediately before you sit down on your hotel bed. The moment you sit down, it's all over. Avoid airline food, it has way too much salt in it. Always have a camera handy when you are sitting in a window seat, because you can take some neat pictures of stuff you fly over when it's clear. Always be polite with the flight attendants, even if they are assholes. quote:Does FAM authority (or however that would be worded) start as soon as they're on the plane, or is it a "plane must be moving" deal or... actually, what authority does a FAM have? Same as an on-duty cop in being able to arrest or anything like that? A FAM is a Federal Law Enforcement officer, so our authority is just like any other Federal Officer. We can technically conduct investigations, make arrests without a warrant, etc - the same as any other. The issue with investigations is we don't have the 1811/CIBTP training (thats criminal investigator basic training program) that others might have, which makes us a simple 1801 rating. It's a subtle distinction because there are plenty of 1801 ratings that still investigate things. As to the plane, we have special rules that fall under the Tokyo convention which dictate special conventions based on where the flight is from and going to. Now OLDER FAMS, as in pre-911, had other regulations. The agency actually started to prevent air piracy with them being an arm of either the DOT or FAA, I can't remember which. At that point, they were pretty much simply given authority while on a plane, and weren't considered real police officers. As much as I hate doing this, a former FAM named Clay Biles wrote a book on the history of the FAM service, and while it is pretty bad in terms of proofreading and grammar, it's accurate as to the history of the service. As for Peace Officer status, it varies from state to state in what we can do in the presence of non-federal crimes. quote:Since you flew so often, do you have any horrible stories of turbulence or storms that made you queasy? Every loving time I flew into Denver I thought I was going to die for some reason. It was like that place wanted to kill me. Flying into Vietnam, once, I thought I was going to die, especially after a flight attendant looked at me from her jumpseat and said "Wow, this is the worst I've ever been in!" and she had been flying for 20+ years. But yeah, loving Denver was always crazy. Anytime we even flew over the midwest of the US, it always felt like there was turbulence waiting there for me. Jiro Kage fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Oct 26, 2015 |
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Oct 26, 2015 15:16
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Did you ever fly with any regular LEOs? As I understand it there is a certification class you can take to be able to carry a firearm on domestic flights if you are a police officer.
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Oct 26, 2015 18:16
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I meant more like a scheduling thing. Like flying LAX to Sydney, you land, do you turn around and get back on another plane? I'm sure CONUS is more like that than anything.
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Oct 27, 2015 04:34
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When I was flying a few years back, I had to use the bathroom but couldn't get to the one in my section because of the drink cart. I asked the flight attendant if I could go to the one in first class (right behind the cockpit) and she said, "Yes, but wait until the person in there comes out. Waiting around near it makes the air marshal nervous." I was surprised that she so openly acknowledged that someone was on board, but just moved on with my day. So I guess I have three questions: 1. Is it normal for the flight attendants to be so open about your presence on a plane? 2. Would lingering near a bathroom in use near the cockpit really make you nervous? 3. What other behaviors would make you nervous? This is more genuine curiosity than anything, but I get it if you can't answer. This was in 2010, so it wasn't like it was immediately after Sept. 11 or anything.
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Oct 28, 2015 02:53
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ucmallory posted:When I was flying a few years back, I had to use the bathroom but couldn't get to the one in my section because of the drink cart. I asked the flight attendant if I could go to the one in first class (right behind the cockpit) and she said, "Yes, but wait until the person in there comes out. Waiting around near it makes the air marshal nervous." I was surprised that she so openly acknowledged that someone was on board, but just moved on with my day. Teflon Don posted:Did you ever fly with any regular LEOs? As I understand it there is a certification class you can take to be able to carry a firearm on domestic flights if you are a police officer.
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Oct 28, 2015 05:08
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Bad Angus! Bad!
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Khizan posted:They specifically prohibit things like billy clubs and nightsticks, and that flashlight is a ~15 inch metal tube filled with D-cell batteries. It's not too much of a stretch to see it getting prohibited as a club.  Why don't you just go ahead and confiscate my kneecaps, since those can be used as a weapon too? Speaking of weapons, how do you carry, OP? You mentioned someone spotting your gun when you stood up- does that mean he spotted it printing, or like, are you rocking a 1980s style shoulder holster? If you use AIWB I would be particularly interested in your choice of holster.
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Oct 28, 2015 13:19
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So, about a year ago some mentally ill pilot from a German airline hijacked a plane and flew it into a mountain over France(you probably know the story better than I do). Are you trained to deal with situations like this? Is there anything an air marshal could have done in that situation? How much safer has air travel become since 9/11? There are a lot more security measures in place, but the volume of air travel has also significantly increased and apparently it's still very easy to smuggle weapons on a plane.
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Oct 28, 2015 14:48
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Serious question, how many flight attendants have you slept with? Is the fact that you're packing heat a turnon?
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Oct 29, 2015 05:50
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chunkles posted:Maglites are pretty hefty and would be good for braining someone with. But would it work as a flashlight again. Seriously that's a lot of energy slamming the admittedly simple guts of the thing around. I've had a good flashlight stop working completely after just dropping it once.
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Oct 29, 2015 08:06
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Jiro Kage posted:
Is there a reason for this? I get some flights might be deemed high threat but I would still think some would be random. With the above poster asking about pilots going bad can you as a FAM be able to get into the cock pit if you had to. Also interested in how you carry at work and if you carry off duty since you mentioned the sig p239 wich was one of my carry guns. How would you and other FAMS feel if a citizen could concele carry on domestic flights assuming they are going and coming from a state that recognizes it?
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Oct 29, 2015 14:23
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What kind of ammo can you carry? Is it low velocity\Jacketed HP?
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Oct 29, 2015 17:15
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Whose idea was it that when the captain comes out to take a leak that they stand the 5'2" 135 pound flight attendant in front of the cockpit doors to stop the dozens of six-foot-tall 200# men on-board from getting in the cockpit and hijacking the plane?
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Oct 30, 2015 02:42
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Are you a member of the mile high club?
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Oct 30, 2015 03:00
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Did you have access to the third parachute?
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Oct 30, 2015 04:19
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Were you informed about possible shady characters or potential problem people before you boarded and where they were seated? Was there a certain "profile" of people to keep an extra eye out for?
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Oct 30, 2015 10:54
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You might not be able to answer this but hypothetically if someone stood up during a flight with a convincing device with a red button making some demand to land at Airport x instead of Airport y would they still be rushed/attacked by you?
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Oct 30, 2015 16:29
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EmployeeOfTheMonth posted:You might not be able to answer this but hypothetically if someone stood up during a flight with a convincing device with a red button making some demand to land at Airport x instead of Airport y would they still be rushed/attacked by you?
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Oct 30, 2015 17:10
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photomikey posted:While I agree with you that we have to have some screening... can we loving give it up with the bottles of water and the toothpaste? I take like a hundred flights a year and my toothpaste has made it through in my carry-on baggage almost every time, to the point where I don't even bother to take it out. I have also observed that few "experienced looking" other travelers bothering to mess with the plastic baggies any more either, I only ever see people with kids messing with that poo poo. I do event production work so I very often fly home after very little sleep/a ton of drinking, so I never really pack my bag in a clear-headed state. It is amazing the number of times I have accidentally gotten small knives, tools, and other shady looking poo poo home in my checked bag. I will say, that the body scanners seem to work very well, and I cant even get by with keeping my boarding pass in my pocket anymore. Sadly gone are the glory days of being able to walk a gram or two of weed through security in one's pocket. ColdPie posted:The clowns sexually harassing you at checkpoints aren't there to make anyone secure, as demonstrated by the TSA itself, they're there to give graft to defense contractors, help lower unemployment, and keep people scared of "terrorists" to help justify further military excursions, which folds back into the defense contractor graft. The clown stealing your water bottle isn't concerned with security. If he had any brain cells to rub together, he would know a bottle of water isn't harmful to anyone. But he doesn't have any brain cells because he works for the TSA, so you have to throw away your water bottle. Haha, ok grandpa, who let you on the internet again?
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Oct 30, 2015 18:09
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Have you had to shoot a gun inside of a fuselage? How much blood loss do you experience through your ears? Do you have to worry about airplanes systems as part of your firearms training?
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Oct 30, 2015 19:41
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JohnGalt posted:Have you had to shoot a gun inside of a fuselage? How much blood loss do you experience through your ears?
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Oct 31, 2015 00:05
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Their choice of caliber makes it worse, .357sig is loud as gently caress.
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Oct 31, 2015 01:51
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Teflon Don posted:Did you ever fly with any regular LEOs? As I understand it there is a certification class you can take to be able to carry a firearm on domestic flights if you are a police officer. That is correct! It requires a class, which was taught by our training department (and I'm sure there were a few other places) and approval from someone in the supervisory chain of command that they needed to take their firearm. There's another piece, but I don't remember what it is. I used to fly with them all the time. quote:I meant more like a scheduling thing. Like flying LAX to Sydney, you land, do you turn around and get back on another plane? I'm sure CONUS is more like that than anything. They at least let you sleep over what is left of the night, and then leave sometime the next day normally. If it was a short hop, say less than 3 hours, you would not come back that day. You can pick any hotel you want as long as you paid the GSA approved government rate. quote:When I was flying a few years back, I had to use the bathroom but couldn't get to the one in my section because of the drink cart. I asked the flight attendant if I could go to the one in first class (right behind the cockpit) and she said, "Yes, but wait until the person in there comes out. Waiting around near it makes the air marshal nervous." I was surprised that she so openly acknowledged that someone was on board, but just moved on with my day. 1 - No, it's not normal and we would probably be pretty upset if they blew our cover like that. 2 - Probably not, unless there was some indicator that you were considering something shady. 3 - It would be pretty situational. When I flew, a loud drunk person was my biggest concern due to possible violence. I never saw an indicator that would make me consider something truly nefarious was about to happen. Flight attendants can be a mixed blessing. Some of them like us, some of them have this bizarre notion that us being aboard affects their pay, and some of them just escalate problems completely that they are supposed to handle. [/quote] Why don't you just go ahead and confiscate my kneecaps, since those can be used as a weapon too? Speaking of weapons, how do you carry, OP? You mentioned someone spotting your gun when you stood up- does that mean he spotted it printing, or like, are you rocking a 1980s style shoulder holster? If you use AIWB I would be particularly interested in your choice of holster. [/quote] I preferrred an IWB at 4 o'clock, which i slid around to small of back sometimes. I could draw really fast in a confined space. My holster of choice was called an MTAC, and it was fantastically comfortable. Right before I quit it broke finally, and that's after being worn pretty much every day. The break wasn't even that bad, too. Some people used a shoulder holster, but humorously enough, these were the guys that wanted to pretend they were Jack Bauer. quote:So, about a year ago some mentally ill pilot from a German airline hijacked a plane and flew it into a mountain over France(you probably know the story better than I do). Are you trained to deal with situations like this? Is there anything an air marshal could have done in that situation? I don't think we would even know what was going on in that situation (unless that was when he locked the guy out), but that is something we could deal with. It has become a lot safer on the flying side. For all the badmouthing TSA that I do on the PASSENGER side (which does suck) the cargo and airport security side has gotten a lot better. In addition, rules and regulations in the cockpit are better without being too intrusive, I believe.
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Oct 31, 2015 02:02
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quote:Serious question, how many flight attendants have you slept with? Is the fact that you're packing heat a turnon? None for me, I'm married. A few guys did, and a few guys did see it as a way to gently caress their way across the globe, but most of the guys were married with children. I HAVE had flight attendants ask me about a fellow air marshal innocuously and then say they went out on a date. quote:Is there a reason for this? I get some flights might be deemed high threat but I would still think some would be random. Unfortunately, I can't answer that. I would not want a citizen concealed carrying. Our training is pretty chaotic - without going through crazy situations, the loud noise, smoke, people running around and yelling, I would be totally afraid of a citizen shooting at me, or us shooting them. If I saw a gun in that cockpit I did not know about, it would be a blue on blue situation, which is one of my biggest fears. Besides, the vetting process for a local concealed carry is much different for a federal agent or someone that has been authorized to carry on a plane through the normal program. The p239 was our smaller "compact" gun, but it really wasn't that smaller in my opinion. quote:Whose idea was it that when the captain comes out to take a leak that they stand the 5'2" 135 pound flight attendant in front of the cockpit doors to stop the dozens of six-foot-tall 200# men on-board from getting in the cockpit and hijacking the plane? We're lucky the airlines even agreed to install barriers on some planes, so I guess anything is a small miracle in this case. I guess the point is that the ruckus it would case in the 5 seconds it takes to get past them would alert the passenger posse. I WILL say that those drink carts are REALLY heavy. quote:Are you a member of the mile high club? Yeah, but not due to this job!  quote:Did you have access to the third parachute? I don't know what that is, but sadly, no. On a side note, I did considering buying my own "compact" one for under my clothes before I spent more than 30 seconds thinking about why this was a bad idea. quote:Have you had to shoot a gun inside of a fuselage? How much blood loss do you experience through your ears? Yes, and it sucks even with ear protection. I can guarantee you there will be some people with ear issues after there is an engagement, but it's better than dying, right? Not really, since most of our firing lines would be walls. Engineers explained to us that a round hitting a window won't do anything other than cause a leak, no movie style explosive decompression, and the rounds probably won't penetrate the walls of the plane. My biggest concern would be somehow missing and hitting the pilots, but that's why we focus so much on marksmanship. quote:It does seem like it would just destroy peoples' hearing, based on what (little) I know of guns and how even suppressors seem to be more about reducing the god-awful noise than silencing it. Though I suppose if you're in a position where you're firing your weapon, the alternative is probably worse. Yup. Both ours and everyone else around us. quote:Their choice of caliber makes it worse, .357sig is loud as gently caress. It's like a drat cannon. Blame the secret service for this, their guys that started running the agency back in 2001, while also one of the reasons the agency is so hosed up, were the ones that decided this was the right round for us. I disagree heavily.
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Oct 31, 2015 02:20
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I held off on commenting until the OP posted again, but small arms fire in the cabin of a modern airliner, while decidedly sub-optimal, has a hilariously low chance of doing any kind of critical damage to the aircraft. There's just so many redundancies and back-up systems, that hitting a pilot is a much bigger risk, and even then, you'd have to completely incapacitate both of them to affect the safety of the aircraft. Also, confirming that MTACs are phenomenal holsters. 
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Oct 31, 2015 14:05
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I'd read about how incredibly wrong things would have to go for a gunshot to like, bring down a plane. I hadn't considered the noise of it before though.
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Oct 31, 2015 16:33
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I can't even imagine the noise. I double up on protection for indoor ranges and it still kicks my rear end. What would have been your preferred round?
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Oct 31, 2015 16:33
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Calypso posted:Were you informed about possible shady characters or potential problem people before you boarded and where they were seated? Was there a certain "profile" of people to keep an extra eye out for? I love this thread, since I fly often. I remember my first flight after 9/11 and a guy across the aisle from me kept reaching down into his bag. It made me incredibly nervous. Then, once we were up, he pulled it up onto his lap and a very small dog popped his/her head out. It wasn't that common back then. Anyway, if you can't answer my question, I understand.
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Oct 31, 2015 18:34
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Tendai posted:I'd read about how incredibly wrong things would have to go for a gunshot to like, bring down a plane. I hadn't considered the noise of it before though. This was always my biggest concern, because if it's during the middle of a long flight over the atlantic, it's going to severely degrade my efficiency not being able to hear anything. I guess as I said though, it's better to be hearing impaired than dead. quote:What would have been your preferred round? Honestly, I probably would have just gone with a 9mm or even a 40. In my opinion, you don't need any special round with hydrostatic shock principles when you are going to be shooting targets that most definitely do not have armor. And if the TSA would stop being loving idiots and just give the VIPR teams rifles, then no one would have to worry about armor at all, really. I like the idea of a 9mm because then we could buy ammunition a lot cheaper and the round isn't so drat loud. The firing conditions are not going to be super long distance most likely, it's about putting rounds on target accurately and as fast as possible. quote:I love this thread, since I fly often. I remember my first flight after 9/11 and a guy across the aisle from me kept reaching down into his bag. It made me incredibly nervous. Then, once we were up, he pulled it up onto his lap and a very small dog popped his/her head out. It wasn't that common back then. There really isn't any sort of profile as to who to look for. You are literally using your "cop sense" in these situations, and relying on flight attendants and people around you. For me personally, I really didn't like people that got onto a plane drunk, or were arguing with someone there in the airport before they got on the plane. I was more worried about an aggressive drunk person causing me to have to break cover. I honestly don't think a terrorist or someone trying to take down a plane is going to look any different than anyone else now. In my opinion it would end up being one of two situations. The first is going to be the person outright announces they are taking over and hijacking, or just outright starts attacking people. That's not going to end well for them. The second is going to be a sharp eyed flight attendant or passenger, or even a paranoid one, that notices something that is checked out and defused before it can head south. That's not going to end well for the enemy there, either, but this is a lot more dangerous. Jiro Kage fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Nov 1, 2015 |
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Oct 31, 2015 21:11
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Jiro Kage posted:I like the idea of a 9mm because then we could buy ammunition a lot cheaper and the round isn't so drat loud. I'm a big proponent of 9mm over other handgun rounds, but then, I'm just a private citizen and I buy all my own ammo.
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Oct 31, 2015 22:20
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Craptacular posted:Were you not supplied with enough practice ammo to practice as much as you wanted to? Why would you care about price per round otherwise? Nope, we didn't get nearly enough ammo or get to shoot nearly enough. They were too busy spending money on stupid poo poo like a career track program that does literally nothing but provide access to....e-books I guess? I don't know, it kinda faded into the background since no one was able to explain exactly what it did.
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Nov 1, 2015 00:31
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Jiro Kage posted:
What is a VIPR rifle? A google search for it turned up russian Vepr rifles and I don't think that's what you were talking about.
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Nov 1, 2015 01:25
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Frostwerks posted:What is a VIPR rifle? A google search for it turned up russian Vepr rifles and I don't think that's what you were talking about. VIPR team - visible intermodal prevention and response. It's not a rifle, its a team that air marshals can be part of. It's actually a really great gig since it gets you out of flying for a while, and you get to do something that feels a bit more substantial. It's the only uniformed federal policing that doesn't have long rifles available because....TSA. I edited that post to make it a bit clearer.
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Nov 1, 2015 04:06
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Not sure if you can reveal this but let me throw a hypothetical at you.. A guy stands up, walks to in front of the cockpit, reveals a knife and says "I am taking over this plane". Do you shoot him?
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Nov 1, 2015 05:41
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faarcyde posted:Not sure if you can reveal this but let me throw a hypothetical at you.. You probably already know the answer to that, considering the way you phrased that question. I don't know if there is a policy or some rule on this, but I will tell you what I would do. It would have depended on what the guy did while standing up there. If he just stood there spouting off poo poo that he was taking over the plane, then I probably would have just sat there and let HRT take him down once we got to the ground. If it got worse, then I would take whatever was necessary to stop that person, yeah. I sure as hell am not going to try and fight him to take away the knife. Jiro Kage fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Nov 1, 2015 |
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Nov 1, 2015 06:54
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How many flight attendants did you score?
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Nov 1, 2015 07:40
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Jiro Kage posted:I was more worried about an aggressive drunk person causing me to have to break cover. Why all the worry about breaking cover? In case, after you took down the drunk guy, there was also a terrorist on the plane that was now going to know who you were?
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Nov 1, 2015 08:20
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Sappo569 posted:How many flight attendants did you score? He answered that right on this very page already.
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Nov 1, 2015 08:49
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