Britain drops plan to use armed guards on aircraft

Josey1

Britain drops plan to use armed guards on aircraftBy David Harrison, Transport Correspondent(Filed: 06/01/2002) ARMED guards will not be put on British aircraft to protect passengers from terrorist attacks, ministers have decided.The Government has quietly dropped the proposal for "sky marshals" - announced by Stephen Byers, the Transport Secretary, after the September 11 attacks - in the face of fierce resistance from British airlines, according to senior Whitehall officials. American airlines have chosen to use sky marshals but a senior transport department official said yesterday: "The airlines have no appetite for armed guards on British planes and we have recognised that. "We need a consensus on this issue and the consensus seems to be that we should concentrate on improving security checks on the ground."British Airways, which is strongly opposed to armed guards, said it was "very concerned" that terrorists could seize the guards' guns and use them on any passengers or crew who resisted their attempts to hijack an aircraft. One airline executive said that hijackers could easily identify an armed guard even if he was disguised as air crew and added: "A determined hijacker would only have to hit him from behind and suddenly you're dealing with terrorist who has a gun - and that's much more dangerous than a terrorist with a knife."Privately airline senior managers admitted that the "astronomical" cost of putting armed guards on all aircraft was also a factor.Last night aviation specialists criticised the decision not to use "sky marshals". Philip Baum, the editor of Aviation Security International, said: "We need well-trained armed guards on our planes as a vital part of the shield against terrorist attacks."Mr Baum said he was worried that the Government and the aviation industry might be putting too much faith in new technology, including machines that can recognise the faces and even the eyes of known terrorist suspects during check-in. Passenger groups, however, welcomed the decision to concentrate on ground security. Simon Evans, the chief executive of the Air Transport Users Council, said: "We think it's the right decision. Sky marshals are impracticable. There are 460,000 flights from Heathrow alone each year. "Where would the guards for all those flights come from? And who would pay?"Mr Byers outlined the proposal for sky marshals on September 15 following meetings with other European Union transport ministers. He said that specially trained air marshals could be issued with weapons, including pistols that could kill a hijacker without piercing the aircraft's skin.Mr Byers said: "The introduction of sky marshals is a measure that we will consider seriously in the light of what happened [on September 11]. "We are dealing with a new form of terrorism and we need to respond to it in the appropriate way . . . We have to make sure our normal way of life is protected."The Government could pass legislation to force airlines to use armed guards on commercial flights, but the Whitehall official said that this was "unlikely". A spokesman for British Airways, said: "We prefer to concentrate our efforts on making sure that nothing dangerous gets onto our aircraft."BA has followed American airlines by introducing pre-boarding "shoe-checks" on passengers after the attempt on December 22 by Richard Reid, a British citizen, to ignite explosives hidden in the sole of his shoe during an American airlines flight from Paris to Miami. The airline is also considering installing closed-circuit television on aircraft so that pilots and cabin crew can monitor passengers' behaviour.The Federal Aviation Administration has received thousands of applications to become federal air marshals since the terrorist attacks, writes Charles Laurence in New York. It declined to say how many marshals were on its payroll or in training. A spokesman said: "It's a very secret programme." http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$HPXPSKAAABV5FQFIQMFSFF4AVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2002/01/06/nsky06.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/01/06/ixnewstop.html

luger01

Lord knows, the British subjects would never want a terrorist to be killed, even if he was attempting to kill thousands of innocents in a suicide explosion.