Where are the air marshals?
Fewer than one percent of the 28,000 commercial flights in the air each day in the United States are protected by on-board, armed federal air marshals, according to a CNN investigation. CNN interviewed air marshals and pilots to gather information for its report. One pilot who crisscrosses the country and flies internationally told CNN he hasn’t seen an air marshal on board one of his flights in six months. A federal law enforcement officer, who is not affiliated with the air marshal service and who travels in and out of Washington every week, said he has gone for months without seeing a marshal on board. Sources told CNN they were particularly troubled by the lack of air marshals on flights in and out of New York and Washington D.C. The TSA refuses to release either the total number of marshals regularly assigned to flights or a percentage of daily flights that are covered, but called the numbers given to CNN “a myth.” “Since the Federal Air Marshal Service post-September 11, 2001, expansion, the volume of risk-based deployments has consistently remained at, near or exceeded target levels,” Greg Alter, assistant special agent in charge of the federal air marshal program, wrote in an e-mail to CNN. He added, “Today, many thousands of dedicated and highly trained Federal Air Marshal Service [sic] work diligently around the globe to make air travel safer than it’s ever been.”
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