‘Prisoner Airline’ Backed to Reduce Risk

The hijacking of an American Airlines flight by a convicted mass murderer being flown back to prison points up the peril of moving dangerous felons on commercial flights--a risk federal authorities are trying to solve by vastly expanding a “prisoner airline” system.

Supporters of the proposed operation, which would use redesigned Navy anti-submarine planes, asserted Wednesday that it could transport prison inmates and illegal aliens for less money and with more security.

“In an ideal world, prisoners would not be moved by commercial airline, because it’s a dangerous thing,” Stanley E. Morris, director of the U.S. Marshals Service, said in an interview. “Our standard operating procedure is we don’t move (prisoners) on commercial aircraft unless we absolutely have to. The reasons are safety, security and cost.”

Federal law enforcement officials hope to get the operation, which could carry an estimated 100,000 prisoners a year, off the ground by fiscal 1987. But this would require a supplemental appropriation this year of $2.4 million for preliminary work, an outlay that may be in question because of the Reagan Administration’s current emphasis on cutting spending.

The problem of transporting prisoners has grown more acute as increasing numbers of them--including Ishmael Ali LaBeet, the latest hijacker--file lawsuits over their treatment by prison authorities, often requiring them to make court appearances some distance from their prison cells.

On New Year’s Eve, LaBeet-- who had been taking part in a civil lawsuit in the Virgin Islands--hijacked the American Airlines DC-10 to Cuba after overpowering three prison guards escorting him back to Lewisburg Federal Prison in Pennsylvania. LaBeet was detained by Cuban authorities.

Although LaBeet went further with his escape plot than most others have managed, his case is no rarity.

Handcuffs Removed

Only last month, Richard Picariello, who was convicted of several terrorist bombings in New England, escaped temporarily when handcuffs were removed as he boarded a Trans World Airlines jet en route from the highest-security federal prison at Marion, Ind., to a maximum-security state prison in Massachusetts. Before the prisoner was recaptured, one of two Suffolk County, Mass., deputies escorting Picariello fired four shots, but no one was injured.

And last September, James O. Quintana, described as the “godfather of the Denver heroin trade,” was freed by four men armed with shotguns who forced off the road the lone deputy sheriff driving the prisoner from Kansas City International Airport to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. Quintana later killed himself after his accomplices surrendered to Kansas City police and deputy U.S. marshals who had surrounded their hideaway.

1,470 on Commercial Flights

Last year, the Marshals Service, which transports inmates to federal proceedings across the country, moved 1,470 prisoners on commercial airlines, Morris said--about 2.5% of all the prisoners it transported and a little more than 10% of those it carried by air.

The proposed expanded prisoner airline would supplement a 44-passenger Convair 580, currently chartered by the Marshals Service, that travels across the nation every 10 days carrying prisoners. In 1984, the plane carried 10,777 prisoners, while 423 others were flown on smaller, leased aircraft.

The expanded airline service also would significantly reduce the overall number of commercially flown prisoners because it would be used by the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the federal Bureau of Prisons as well as the Marshals Service. Furthermore, state and local authorities, who must fly most transported prisoners, could put their charges aboard the federal aircraft on a space-available basis.

The proposal calls for borrowing six Lockheed P-3 Orion aircraft from the Navy and converting them into 100-passenger planes with special security modifications, according to Charles J. Haugh, administrator of commercial services for the Bureau of Prisons.

When fully operational, the converted aircraft would carry about 100,000 prisoners a year, about one-third of the total currently transported “long haul”--300 miles or more--by the three agencies, Haugh said.

Quoting from a joint study by the Bureau of Prisons, the INS and the Marshals Service, Haugh said the cost of the expanded service is estimated at $17,305,000, which he said would represent an annual savings of about $2.5 million.