Government plans to put gun-toting sky marshals on board British airliners flew into turbulence when British Airways and the main pilots’ union said it would do “more harm than good” and put passengers at risk. The British government announced Sunday that plainclothes sky marshals, travelling incognito among passengers, would be placed on selected British airline flights — exactly which ones it did not say — in response to a heightened state of alert in the United States. “Air marshals will be deployed where appropriate,” said a joint statement from Transport Secretary Alistair Darling and Home Secretary David Blunkett. In Washington, the US Homeland Security Department said Monday that non-US airlines will be told “on a flight by flight basis” whether to put sky marshals on board, as a precondition for entering US airspace. But a spokeswoman for British Airways, one of the world’s biggest air carriers, said: “We have always said we have concerns about having armed people on aircraft.” Full Story
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