A FAM's job is to blend in with other passengers on board aircraft and rely heavily on their training, including investigative techniques, criminal terrorist behavior recognition, firearms proficiency, aircraft-specific tactics, and close quarters self-defense measures to protect the flying public.

[9] The "Sky Marshal Program" of the 1970s later became a joint effort between the then United States Customs Service and the FAA and was led by General Benjamin O. Davis Jr., a former Tuskegee Airman.

On September 11, 1970, in response to increasing acts of air piracy by hijacking to Cuba and Islamic radicals, President Richard Nixon ordered the immediate deployment of armed federal agents on United States commercial aircraft.

[citation needed] In 1985, President Ronald Reagan requested the expansion of the program and Congress enacted the International Security and Development Cooperation Act, which expanded the statutes that supported the Federal Air Marshal Service.

[citation needed] Air marshals were originally designated as U.S. Customs security officers assigned by order of President Kennedy on an as-needed basis, and later were specially trained FAA personnel.

In 1992, Retired Major General Orlo Steele, then the Associate Administrator for Civil Aviation Security, hired Greg McLaughlin as Director of the Federal Air Marshal Program.

McLaughlin was hired as an air marshal after the hijacking of TWA 847 and was working in Frankfurt, Germany, investigating the bombing of Pan Am 103.

The voluntary nature of the program and efforts by McLaughlin and Steele turned the small force of Federal Air Marshals into an extremely capable one.

A study from the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) later came out with a classified report during this time period, placing Federal Air Marshals among the top 1% of combat shooters in the world.

[9] Before the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Federal Air Marshal Service consisted of varying numbers of FAMs dependent on government funding.

[13] As a result of the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush ordered the rapid expansion of the Federal Air Marshal Service.

Many new hires were agents from other federal agencies, such as the United States Secret Service, United States Border Patrol, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), the DEA, NPS, FBI, ATF, INS, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Office of the Inspector General (OIG), U.S.

On October 16, 2005, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff approved the transfer of the Federal Air Marshal Service from U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) to TSA as part of a broader departmental reorganization to align functions consistent with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) "Second Stage Review" findings for the following: As part of this realignment, the director of the Federal Air Marshal Service also became the assistant administrator for the TSA Office of Law Enforcement (OLE), which houses nearly all TSA law enforcement services.

[16] Since July 2004, TSA has provided supplemental personnel, including federal air marshals, to assist mass transit systems during major events, holidays and anniversaries of prior attacks.

Beginning in July 2007, TSA significantly increased the number and frequency of VIPR deployments from an average of one exercise per month to one or two per week.

On April 7, 2023, the first instructional textbook on aviation-specific tactics used by Federal Air Marshals was published by CRC Press, Routledge.

"[21] In early 2020, the Federal Air Marshal Service announced that it would be transitioning to the Glock 19 Gen 5 9mm handgun, and it awarded SIG Sauer the contract for ammunition.

The book, titled Unsecure Skies, gave a behind the scenes look at the inner workings of the Federal Air Marshal Service under the Transportation Security Administration, including discussions on alleged bureaucratic strain and favoritism within the agency.

Ultimately, one of Asa Hutchinson's final decisions before resigning as head of DHS's Border and Transportation Security Directorate was the issuance of a memorandum determining that air marshals would not be HSI special agents.

In 2005, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff conducted a second-stage review of DHS' organization and ordered the FAMS to be moved from ICE and back to the TSA.

[26] On December 7, 2005, two Federal Air Marshals shot and killed 44-year-old U.S. citizen Rigoberto Alpizar, a passenger of American Airlines Flight 924, on a boarding bridge at Miami International Airport.

[citation needed] It was at that point that the air marshals gave up their cover and pursued him out the door and up the jet bridge.

"[21] On December 8, 2005, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said that President George W. Bush was satisfied that air marshals acted appropriately in the Alpizar shooting.

This plan was also at odds with the Aviation and Transportation Security Act (ATSA), whose Section 105 states that "Deployment of Federal Air Marshals... [on] nonstop, long distance flights, such as those targeted on September 11, 2001, should be a priority.

[36] Another investigation was conducted by reporter Amy Davis of Houston news station KPRC into the possibility that air marshals with criminal convictions were still being employed by FAMS.

[37][38] The investigation discovered that 28 had been hired with pre-existing misdemeanors and that several current air marshals had been convicted of or were awaiting trial for offenses including disorderly conduct, DUIs, and sexual crimes against children.

On August 6, 2006, two air marshals were sentenced in the Southern District of Texas (Houston) after having been convicted of conspiring to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and also on bribery charges.

He argued that this represents a win of the perceived dangers of terror, supported by a profit center-type approach, over realistic spending priorities.