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fosk

> US Air marshals (armed cops who sit on every aircraft secretly with plain-clothes)

Do they really sit on every flight?

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No, just on the basic numbers we have available, it would not be possible.

https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/13264/are-air-m...

No, but I had one sit next to me on a flight to Vegas once. It's a long story, first how we suspected and then when he admitted it as we got off the plane. They do exist though.

How did you suspect?... (And, who's the other person in the plural?)

The sky-marshal-starter-pack, of course: https://i.redd.it/w67t4ogdmx8y.jpg

Some friends and I were on the way to Vegas. We had a few drinks and I guess hit the limit they serve on a flight. We had been having a conversation with a guy next to us about small talk things, joking, wharever. This guy then looks at the stewardess and says “they’re fine, and there is no need to cut them off”. She then kept bringing drinks until we landed. At that point we started joking he was an air marshall, and he laughed it off.

Once we got in the terminal he kinda flashed his ankle holster and told us to have fun on our vacation. Also mentioned something along the lines that we had made a normally boring 5 hour flight entertaining.

I should add this was 10+ years ago.

Oh, well, if he admitted it, then he must have been a real marshall.

Nope, but I've had one sit next to me before on a US bound international flight (in 2005 ish). So they definitely exist.

Interesting ! So they are also on international flights going to the us ! How about outbound international flights where the jet is full of fuel over the US ?

Btw, how did you recognize he was a FAM ?

No. The percentage of flights with air marshals is in the low single digits.

Which makes sense. A JFK to AMS flight is probably a much higher risk for terrorism than say FSD to MOT.

According to the article I read, they're actually less common on flights out of NY and Washington DC- there were pilots complaining that they hadn't seen an air marshal in 6+ months. It sounds like they avoid putting marshals on flights that have other law enforcement officers on them, which is going to be a good chunk of the domestic flights to/from big cities

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