More than 10 percent of the nation’s airline pilots are trained to carry a handgun while flying, and the Transportation Security Administrations says that number will grow. The Federal Air Marshal Service, a TSA agency that runs the armed-pilots program, reports that 85,000 to 90,000 pilots and crewmembers flying domestic passenger and cargo planes are eligible to carry a gun, according to a report by USA Today. That puts the number of armed pilots at about 9,500 — a figure Air Marshal spokesman Nelson Minerly did not dispute. The marshal service keeps the exact number confidential. According to the report, as many as 16.5% of eligible pilots could carry a gun by 2011. “That’s a scary number,” Joseph Gutheinz, a former Transportation Department special agent and aviation attorney in Houston, told USA Today. “By allowing so many pilots the opportunity to fly armed, we’re giving terrorists opportunity to identify somebody who has a gun and overpower him.” Others, however, said having an armed pilot was a tremendous asset against thwarting a terrorist hijacking.
