There’s an episode of Seinfeld where George pisses off a criminal by taking the last copy of Time magazine in which he was on the cover. He later meet the guy in the bathroom of the plane and gets beat up or something. I’ve always found that odd.
Do the police ever transport criminals, shackles and all, on regular commercial flights? Seems like it’d be a huge security risk.
The Feds have their own airline for this purpose. The Wikipedia article also claims that this system is sometimes used by state law enforcement agencies as well.
As you note, it seems like it would be a big security risk carrying a prisoner on a commercial aircraft. Moreover, it would unnerve the other passengers.
I can say that in all my years of flying on commercial aircraft, I’ve never seen anyone on a plane in handcuffs or shackles of any kind.
Well, he turned out not to be “dangerous” (except, perhaps, to the career of an aspiring and gullible DA), but John Mark Karr (i.e. JonBenet Ramsey’s confessed murderer) flew from Thailand uncuffed and in business class.
Here are some relevant FAA regs.
Once when I was flying in the UK, a policeman with a prisoner shackled to him boarded the plane. Policeman had a plastic bag clearly full of other plastic bags of evidence of some kind. Said prisoner was what the Brits like to call a “hard man”. Central casting would be calling for him whenever someone needed the crap beating out of them or general thuggery was involved. But as to dangerous, that is always a difficult call. Given the this was the UK, I doubt anyone was armed. They didn’t enter the plane via the terminal, rather a police car drew up at the foot of the aerobridge and they climbed the stairs. They sat at the back of the plane. Caused a bit of a stir.
A few years back there was adocumentaryon the subject.
The FAA regs posted above seem to indicate it could still happen legally if they needed to move someone urgently and there was no con-air flights available. One high risk prisoner per flight with two marshals attached or two low risk prisoners with one Marshall per flight. Seated at the back, boarded first (not through the terminal) and deplaned last.
Most passengers would never be aware there was a prisoner on the flight.
Deportations regularly happen on commercial flights with a LEO (or two) accompanying the deportee. That’s why we have deportation agents.
While I wouldn’t consider myself a “dangerous” criminal, when I was paroled from Colorado to a detainer in Texas I was escorted by a Harris County Deputy on a commercial flight. He showed the proper paperwork and boarded with his firearm and me, uncuffed.
And like he told me “If you try to run I’ll just shoot you”. And having had dealings with Harris County Texas I knew he was indeed serious. He didn’t have to leave me uncuffed but was just being nice about it. Besides he knew and I knew that with the time I had spent in Colorado it was just a formality and that I would be released not long after being sentenced in Texas. About 30 days later I was out. Haven’t looked back since then and thank God I no longer have to look over my shoulder for law enforcement. This was in 1990. Things may be quite different since 9/11.
I believe Viktor Bout may have been transferred to the US from Thailand in a similar manner. (Well, not uncuffed, but on a commercial flight.)
EDIT: No, maybe not. I’m seeing references to “bundled onto a secretive extradition flight.”
I used to work for a travel agency that did government travel exclusively. I can state for absolute certain that some criminals were transported on commercial aircraft accompanied by armed guards. The criminal always had a window seat in the last row, and the guard sat next to him. There were special codes we had to insert in the record advising the airline that (1) a prisoner was traveling, and (2) the guard would be armed.
I was in that job up until about 1992, so it may have changed since then.
I was recently extradited from Florida to Louisiana via commercial airline. Last row, window seat, hand-cuffed with a windbreaker concealing my manacles. My felony was reduced to misdemeanor, thank God.
There’s actually a company, Transcor, that makes a living out of transporting prisoners around.
As our new friend just said in this old thread, it’s completely routine.
We do it every day on the major airlines. Not every flight, but a day doesn’t go by without several prisoners being hauled somewhere on a big airline. Details differ, but they’re loaded first, sit there quietly in handcuffs accompanied by a couple of armed plainclothes police, and deboard last.
Deportees are often put on an airliner going to wherever with no restraint or escort at all. They are not legally prisoners. We treat them just like the other customers.
I had a fun event a year or so ago where we worked a domestic flight going to a hub with two deportees aboard. Two ICE (used to be INS) agents were supposed to meet the flight and escort the deportees to the flight to Mexico or Guatemala or wherever they were being deported to.
The ICE agents arrived at our gate a few minutes after we did and most of the passengers had long since deplaned. Including two folks who didn’t really want to make their connecting flight.
Oops. I bet they had some ‘splainin’ to do to their supervisor when they got back to the office.
Of course. However many haven’t been caught or convicted yet.
And because it’s a fun story, I’ll mention that my relative, after notifiying the airline that he would be carrying a hand gun in the cabin, (a requirement of his job) arrived at the airport to find that his two elderly relatives had been ushered into a small room with no windows, to wait for him.
On the assumption that since he was escorting them, they must be his prisoners 
Had a friend who did this for the local Sheriff’s Office. Pre-9/11, but he tended more towards first row than last.
Some guy didn’t want to give up his first class seat. Passenger was told, “Okay, you can sit next to him…alone.” with ‘him’ being the guy in handcuffs & leg shackles. Passenger quickly changed his mind & moved back to sit with the minions.
Pilots and crew are pre-briefed I presume.
Which makes me wonder how much the crew is required to be told (Union or FAA), and even if info is made available to pilots and not cabin crew in some circumstances.
Any non-secret stuff you can share, LSL?
Back in the 80’s when I was a LEO, I did it several times. Just board first, last row, put the prisoner in a window seat with their lap covered, deplane last. No biggie.
Flight crew knew were there, had to show credentials since we were armed.
We know there’s a prisoner and we know there’s armed escorts and what agency they work for. We meet them briefly during their pre-boarding. Just enough to try to remember what they look like in case that becomes important later.
The rest isn’t our problem. There is some level of screening that happens when the agency makes travel arrangements with the airlines. IOW, they know not to transport insane hard or uncooperative cases; that’s what the special charter carriers or Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System - Wikipedia are for.
I believe that most of what we deal with are extraditions. Usually the agency doing the transporting is foreign to where we’re leaving but local to where we’re going.