Sometimes Having The TSA Doesn’t Seem So Bad

Before 9/11, I was a federal agent flying back east for training. I was required to be armed while flying. The proper procedure was to notify the ticket agent at the desk and show my credentials. They would fill out a multipart form. I would show this to the security person. (There was no TSA then.) They would normally examine my credentials and let me through, but sometimes they would call over a police officer to verify me. I would then bypass the metal detector, proceed to my gate, and notify the gate agent so they could alert the crew.

When boarding the flight, I would give a copy of the form to the flight attendant to provide to the pilot. That way, the crew would know I was on board and could assist with security issues. I would often be seated in the emergency exit row, too, since the government rate tickets didn’t have reserved seats. If there was another armed law enforcement officer on board, the crew would notify both of us and identify us to each other for safety.

One day, I did the part at the ticket desk normally. I checked my bags and had no carry-on. When I got to the metal detector, I held out my form to the attendant and quietly told him I was armed. I didn’t like to speak loudly since it could frighten other passengers in line. He didn’t take it and didn’t ask to see my credentials or badge. Instead, he just told me to wait there while he called an officer over. He got on the intercom, requested an officer, and then just went back to screening other passengers.

I waited about ten minutes with no officer showing up, and I heard my flight being called for boarding. I asked the security man to hurry it up because my flight was boarding. He called again.

Several minutes later, I heard the call for final boarding on my flight, and I could actually see the gate from the security station. The airport was a lot smaller then, so this was possible. I just walked directly to the gate, handed over my ticket, and walked onto the plane. I handed the form to the flight attendant and told her to provide it to the pilot. Her jaw dropped, and her eyes got wide; she would normally have been notified that an armed agent was going to board long before boarding started.

I took my seat and flew with no further incident, but I never had to show my badge or ID to security, a gate agent, or a flight attendant, and I never went through a metal detector. The paper could have been anything since no one read it before I was seated, if even then.

Although this was before 9/11, it was long after D.B. Cooper made skyjacking a real security issue.