NEW YORK – A U.S. air marshal reportedly forgot her loaded gun in the bathroom of a Delta flight headed from England to New York and the gun was found by another passenger.
It reportedly happened on April 6 aboard a flight from Manchester to Kennedy International Airport.
The New York Times reports that the passenger gave the weapon to a member of the flight crew, who returned it to the air marshal.
The marshal waited days to report the incident to her superiors, according to the report. The Transportation Security Administration said it was investigating the incident.
Other air marshals said that leaving a loaded weapon unattended constituted a significant security breach.
“You can’t have inept people leaving weapons in a lavatory,” said Craig Sawyer, a former air marshal told The Times. “If someone with ill intent gets hold of that weapon on an aircraft, they are now armed.”
In 2015, a federal air marshal left his gun in a bathroom stall at Newark Liberty International Airport. That gun was later found by a janitor.
A federal air marshal left her loaded gun in an airplane restroom during a transatlantic flight to Kennedy Airport — yet she’s still on the job, it was reported Saturday.
A passenger found the weapon on Delta Flight 221 from Manchester, England, on April 6, and gave it to a flight attendant who returned it to the marshal, CNN said.
Federal Air Marshal Service sources told CNN that the agent should have been placed on leave, but remains on active flight duty.