Originally Posted by
MikeNYC1
The remaining question is, on the Military charters, are the passengers' weapons secured in the hold? Or how does security work? If they have to meet 91K or standard 121/TSA regs, then I'd assume it's operated like any other flight. If not, the plane would have to be security sanitized post-flight.
No, we carried all our weapons with us and essentially treated them as carry on luggage - that you better not lose!
I must admit it's a bit strange to see M249 Squad Automatic Weapons and M4s just carried about casually on a Southwest flight (to Kileen, TX).
We were told not to carry ammo on board but only time you are really checked is coming out of theater.
On the way to/from theater we stopped 2x over 1x back and a few Soldiers stayed on the plane to make sure the cleaning/ground crew didn't mess w/ anything.
Company/Battalion/Brigade commanders CSMs/1SGs got majority of the first class seats (really business class) going out (none on return flight). Remaining F seats generally went to the Soldier's who had to serve as ground crew and load the planes.