More than one in 10 of the US’s airline pilots are cleared to carry a handgun while flying. That number will continue to grow, according to a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) projection.
The TSA, which has declined to disclose the number of armed pilots, revealed in a recent budget document that 10.8% of airline crewmembers were authorized to carry guns.
The Federal Air Marshal Service, a TSA agency that runs the armed-pilots program, reports that 85,000 to 90,000 pilots and crewmembers flying domestic passenger and cargo planes are eligible to carry a gun. That puts the number of armed pilots at about 9,500 — a figure Air Marshal spokesman Nelson Minerly did not dispute, according to the AP. The marshal service keeps the exact number confidential.
The TSA projects the program to grow to 16.5% of eligible pilots by the year 2011.
“That’s a big number compared to what I thought it would be,” said aviation-security consultant Rich Roth, who said he had predicted there would be fewer than 1,000 armed pilots.
“By allowing so many pilots the opportunity to fly armed, we’re giving terrorists opportunity to identify somebody who has a gun and overpower him,” said Joseph Gutheinz, an aviation attorney in Houston.
Capt. Bob Hesselbein, head of security for the Air Line Pilots Association, said the number of armed pilots is “a tremendous deterrent” to hijackings.â€
Armed pilots have come under scrutiny since March 22 when the gun of a US Airways pilot fired in the cockpit of Flight 1536 as it approached Charlotte from Denver. No one was hurt, and the plane landed safely after the bullet pierced the fuselage.
Report by David Wilkening
