Government rushes to put armed guards on jetliners

WASHINGTON -- Armed guards may become almost as much a part of air travel as pilots and flight attendants as the government rushes to get hundreds of new marshals on board airliners.

Federal agencies are being asked to contribute armed plainclothes security officials while the Federal Aviation Administration begins to train a new generation of marshals to provide security on airplanes. Many are coming from the Justice Department, Attorney General John Ashcroft said.

Hundreds of other marshals are being recruited, many of them retired law enforcement officials. Some private security firms, whose employees serve as air marshals for foreign airlines, are being asked for help as well.

"There is a commitment to try to get more sky marshals in the air as soon as possible," said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the House Transportation aviation subcommittee.

Mica said the federal government will pick up the tab.

The first sky marshals took to the skies in the 1970s to try to thwart hijackings to Cuba, and the current air marshals program began in 1985 in response to the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 by Shiite Muslims from Lebanon.

The program had fallen into disuse in recent years. David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association, an advocacy group, estimated that there were slightly more than two dozen marshals remaining, all flying on overseas routes.

But the terrorist hijackings of four U.S. airliners have Transportation Department officials rushing to rekindle the program.

"Certain things will be done right now to make people more secure," said Darryl Jenkins, director of The George Washington University's Aviation Institute. "The thought that there might be a sky marshal on a flight will give comfort to travelers."