Frontier flight attendant gives list of armed passengers to customer

PHOENIX (KSAZ) - A man traveling on a flight from Chicago to Phoenix this past Sunday got a note from a flight attendant. She thought he was a Federal Air Marshal, and she told him there were two armed passengers on the flight.

A former Air Marshal FOX 10 spoke to says it could have been a catastrophic mistake if that note had gotten into the hands of someone who had bad intentions on the plane.

William Stratton was buckled in his seat ready for a flight to Phoenix when a flight attendant walked over to his seat.

"We were about to pull away from the gate, and the flight attendant said sir, here is the rest of your boarding pass and handed me a white piece of paper," said William Stratton.

The note was written on a cocktail napkin and at the top it had seat numbers 10F and 13F and at the bottom, it said "other armed passengers."

"Well, I didn't really know what to think. I went up to her and said ma'am; this wasn't intended for me. And she just said oh god, and that was it," said Stratton.

The flight attendant had mistaken Stratton for an air marshal, and the note indicated there were two other law enforcement officers who were on the plane with guns. It's a standard procedure to notify air marshals of other armed passengers on board.

In a statement to FOX 10, Frontier said: "The note was handed to another customer instead of the person it was intended for after the customer changed seats on the plane."

Stratton says his boarding pass proves that isn't true.

"Those are the seats we were assigned; those are the seats we sat in. I can't imagine it's very easy just to change seats, let alone with someone who is assigned a specific seat for safety purposes," said Stratton.

Stratton said he was uncomfortable at first, but really more concerned about the way the confidential information was passed along to the wrong person. He says he hopes the airline will take a look at its policies and make sure this doesn't happen again.