By Larry Sandler
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Wisconsin)
The Transportation Security Administration has started a program for local emergency personnel to help out in hijackings or other emergencies in the air — almost five years after Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) pushed it through Congress.
Under the Volunteer for Safe Skies program, airlines must set up a way for law enforcement officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians to register with the airlines and to confidentially identify themselves to the crews of airliners on which they are flying. The unarmed volunteers could then help crew members and armed undercover air marshals in an emergency.
Each airline will develop its own program rules. The federal agency would be required to compile all those rules and send them to police and fire departments and related groups under a Feingold amendment to the 2006-'07 homeland security appropriations bill, which is heading for a conference committee.
Two top public safety officials in Beloit suggested the program to Feingold at a town hall meeting shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Feingold won approval of the plan later that year.
“We’re a better country if we’re all out there, ready to step up to the plate and help out,” said James Reseburg, who was Beloit’s fire chief when he proposed the idea with Charlie Tubbs, then the city’s deputy police chief. Tubbs is now state director of juvenile corrections and Reseburg works for a development company.