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Revision as of 12:53, 3 March 2007 by 210.56.106.3 (talk) (→Fictional references)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Sky marshal (also known as air marshal or flight marshal) is a popular term for an undercover law enforcement officer on board a commercial aircraft, to counter aircraft hijackings ('skyjackings'). Many carriers are known to have sky marshals on board on selected flights, for example, Swiss (since 1970; formerly Swissair), El Al, Sri Lankan Airlines, Air India, Indian Airlines (on selective routes) and United Airlines. The majority of domestic and foreign commercial flights originating in Israel have armed sky marshals. Sky marshals became an issue in late 2003 when United States ordered foreign airlines to have armed guards on flights to and from the country as a precaution against terrorist attacks. Many of the involved countries and carriers have expressed great reservation towards the idea since they fear that having weapons on board only increases the risk of terrorist actions. Others maintain that these reservations are unfounded, citing the record of El Al, which has a number of armed marshals on each flight, and has only been the victim of one successful hijacking, in 1968. Sky marshals may be provided by the various airlines or by government agencies such as the US Federal Air Marshal Service.
Ocean-going cruise ships have similar officers, known as sea marshals.
Sky marshals in action
Fictional references
The term "sky marshal" has seen reference in some works of science fiction, albeit in a very different context. In Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers, the Sky Marshal is the uniformed commander-in-chief of the Terran Federation military who has risen to the highest rank in both the naval and infantry branches of the military. The Terran Federation of the Starfire universe has a Sky Marshal in the exact same position.
In the film Executive Decision, the fictional Oceanic Airlines Flight 343 carried a Sky Marshal armed with a pistol, who played a minor role in subduing the Algerian hijackers.
The movie Anger Management starts off with a confrontation between Adam Sandler's character and an air marshal (played by Isaac C. Singleton Jr).
In Flightplan, a 2005 film by Robert Schwentke, Peter Sarsgaard plays Gene Carson, a sky marshal on the board, who kidnaps and conceals a girl in the cargo hold, as a part of his very clever plan to blackmail the airline for a hefty fifty million dollars by using bomb threat.