Passengers on a United Airways flight from Los Angeles to Boston had been compelled to take down a person attempting to stab a flight attendant final 12 months — as a result of there have been no air marshals current because of their continued deployments to the southern border, The Submit has discovered.
In the course of the top of the border disaster, the federal authorities has been sending 200 air marshals to the border on 21-day deployments, leaving main flights weak to threats, Sonya LaBosco, a retired supervisory federal air marshal who speaks on behalf of the Air Marshal Nationwide Council, informed The Submit.
From her personal expertise, LaBosco knew the LA to Boston route was one which was at all times staffed by marshals. She grew to become much more involved when passengers of a March 2023 Flight 2609 started contacting her, understanding they had been left to deal with the threatening passenger on their very own.
“As a result of we had deployed air marshals to the border, there was no air marshals on that flight,” she stated.
“So our worst fears had been coming true each day with the in-flight incidents that had been occurring that air marshals would have been on these flights to maintain passengers from being injured.”
That day — and another day — air marshals have been deployed to the border, they’ve been there merely “handing out water, making sandwiches, Uber Eats runs … bringing diapers and stuff into the services and unloading vehicles,” LaBosco stated, including that it’s “completely ridiculous.”
By taking air marshals away from their legislation enforcement duties, whereas additionally releasing thousands and thousands of migrants crossing the southern border illegally who then typically fly commercially, there are main considerations that the following 9/11 might simply occur, LaBosco stated.
“The long-haul flights are tremendous necessary for us to be on
as a result of these are the identical flights the 9/11 hijackers truly focused and took that day.”Sonya LaBosco of the Air Marshal Nationwide Council
In current months, federal authorities have been conducting main sweeps of alleged ISIS terrorists and people related to terror-tied smuggling rings who’ve been launched into the nation by way of the southern border. Some nonetheless stay at massive.
“The long-haul flights are tremendous necessary for us to be on as a result of these are the identical flights the 9/11 hijackers truly focused and took that day on 9/11.”
That fear is one thing a federal watchdog highlighted in a current report regarding airplane safety whereas the understaffed air marshals had been tied up on the southern border.
That report discovered that Transportation Safety Administration, which oversees air marshals, did not “assess the operational impacts” the deployments had on its “major mission of safeguarding the nation’s transportation system.”
“With out establishing efficiency measures and assessing dangers associated to deploying air marshals, TSA can not guarantee deployments didn’t impression FAMs mission to mitigate potential dangers and threats to our nation’s transportation system…” the report states.
The watchdog additionally discovered that TSA spent $45 million on the border deployments between Might 2019 and August 2023,
“With respect to prices, TSA incurred roughly $45 million in journey and payroll prices related to the deployment of air marshals to the southwest border from Might 2019 to August 2023,” the report states.
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