More sky marshals for domestic flights

New Delhi: Jolted by 26/11, the Government is now increasing the number of sky marshals on domestic flights. But, there’s a glaring obstacle: the country faces an acute shortage of trained sky marshals to guard Indian skies against any possible hijack or Terror attack.
The Civil Aviation Ministry, which held a high-level meeting on security review with the Home Ministry and other security agencies, undertook an extensive review of security at airports and airlines. One of the proposals, now under active consideration is increasing the number of sky marshals on domestic routes. Further, the Government has decided to undertake security review of all airports in the country.
“We are planning to increase the number of sky marshals on domestic flights to further secure the skies,” said Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel. Refusing to give any further details on the matter, citing sensitive nature of information, he said the marshals will be deployed on routes classified as sensitive by the intelligence agencies.
However, there is an acute shortage of sky marshals, trained by NSG commandos and drawn from various paramilitary forces, admitted a senior Government official. Waking up to this reality, the NSG has now been asked to augment this special force so that Indian skies can be protected against hijack threats.
Sky marshals are mainly Army personnel trained in commando operations. They travel as ‘normal passengers’ in flights but carry weapons, mainly small automatic guns and army ‘Rambo’ knives just in case they have to encounter a hijacker in the plane.
The number of sky marshals on a single flight varies between one and three, which will now be increased, said a Civil Aviation Ministry official.
18/12/08 Smita Aggarwal/Indian Express

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Categories: Safety Dec 2008