US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - Spot the sky marshal!

A couple weeks ago I was on a transcon SEA-PHL (or it might have been SEA-PIT) on an A320. I was one of the very first to board and sat down in 3F. Actually, I thought I had been the first one, but my seatmate in 3D was already on board. He was a solidly built, casually but sharply dressed African-American in his mid-30s. He was already engrossed in a book. Behind us in 4C was another solidly built, casually but sharply dressed and markedly young (22?) white man.

During the flight, I noticed that the book Mr. 3D was reading was a very short pulp fiction-type novel. I also noticed that he "read" it the whole time. I mean, the whole time. It was not a very long book. And that was all he did. He ate a few bites of his meal, but that was about it.

At the end of the flight I disembarked and, out of sheer curiosity, hung around to see when my seatmate would deplane. Surprise, surprise, he came off the plane last--accompanied by Mr. 4C. (They had given no sign of knowing one another on the flight itself.) They walked off toward the terminal.

So, my clues for spotting the sky marshal:

* "pre-pre-boarding"
* aisle seats in F
* apparently engrossed in strangely uninteresting reading material
* not much of an appetite
* sharp but casual clothing--loose enough to hide the heat they're packing

Anyone else had a close encounter like this one? Now I play the "spot the sky marshal" game every time I fly, especially longer flights....

Andy


[This message has been edited by ahc (edited 06-14-2002).]

I would encourage others not to reply to this thread. While all easily discernable information, posting tips/flight numbers/etc all puts them at risk. While you certainly have the ability to have free speech you may want to consider that and edit your post. Sharing security related information in a public forum isn't something I think is a good idea.

You are probably right, but you really did not have to broadcast it. Most FF's could figure it out. It is probably best that some people don't. COMMON SENSE

------------------
As God as my witness, I will never fly coach again. <sorry Scarlet>
I am not real smart, but I can lift heavy things.

Honestly guys, it's not as if we're sharing anything that the terrorists don't already know. Unfortunately, I'm almost positive that Al-Qaeda et. al. have access to airline CRSs and manifests if they want to review flights for some sort of attack. So let's put the paranoia back in the box and play another round of spot the sky marshal...

[This message has been edited by avek00 (edited 06-14-2002).]

I agree with Avek00.

I think that a potential terrorist could figure this one out, as easily as figuring out, "Hmmmm, if I just wait to get in the boarding line until they pull the next 84-year-old woman out for screening, I can get on board undetected!". (thanks to Deelmakur for the insight on that one).

I have been in 3D on two transcons in the last 6 weeks, so your 3D theory isn't necessarily true.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by avek00:
Honestly guys, it's not as if we're sharing anything that the terrorists don't already know.
[This message has been edited by avek00 (edited 06-14-2002).]</font>

I would agree. Lighten up!

I even think that such post might help the sky marshals - if they get feedback what they have done wrong --&gt; they ty to learn out of the mistakes and thereby the general public security is increased again. But Cat is right in some way - maybee wh should just discuss on the behavior mistakes we have noticed - which may sound like klisches.

A question i have would be:
It was reported after 911 that 30.000 sky marchals will be employed - i doubht that they all have been educated allready ? So when will they be all in service?

mfg
Max

Given avek00's connections and sources in the airline industry, I think we should do as he says and play yet another game. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/rolleyes.gif

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Lemon Ruski:
It was reported after 911 that 30.000 sky marchals will be employed - i doubht that they all have been educated allready ? So when will they be all in service?
</font>

Lots of things were reported after 9/11 that weren't exactly true. This is one of them. The actual number of active duty FAMs today is approximately an 800% increase on what they were pre-9/11, but are still not even a miniscule fraction of the 30,000 you mention.

The odds of there being a FAM present on a non-DCA route are roughly 1 in 10000. Play *spot the skymarshal* all you want, but on 99.99% of your flights you will be wrong.

This thread is probably harmless. That said, add me to the "this is something that shouldn't be discussed" camp. Play the "make the marshal" game with seat-mates all you want, but not in a public forum.

This touches upon a larger issue. I am regularly horrified by media "experts" who have outlined in great detail our vulnerabilities over the last few months. We've all seen the articles. However, here we are the "experts." We fly a lot, and observe. We should be careful how we pass on what we observe, including conjecture about the number of marshals. Yesterday's excellent Washington Post op-ed (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54650-2002Jun14.html) captures my perspective exactly.

For what it's worth, the only flight I've been on where the marshals identified themselves (they were standing in the galley with the Flight Attendents with the aircraft on short final after an incident), they were attired completely differently from what is noted above.