Air Marshal Council Director: Sending Marshals to Border Has Cut our Presence by 80%, ‘Demolishing our Chances at Stopping another 9/11’

On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends First,” Air Marshal National Council Executive Director Sonya LaBosco stated that diverting air marshals to the border is “demolishing our chances at stopping another 9/11.” And has cut down on the number of flights that have air marshals from “at least” 5% to “less than 1%” of flights.

LaBosco said, “The message is clearly, let’s stop another 9/11. We are extremely concerned. There have been numerous incidents within the last two weeks, a level 4 threat, which means someone tried to breach a cockpit two days ago on a Southwest flight. So, the message is, sir, please replace the air marshals on the border, stop taking them out of the skies, and let us do the job that we were trained to do.”

She added, “We have been decimated. We have been depleted. We’re on less than 1% [of] flights. These ground-based duties that they’re pulling us out of the sky to go to the border [to do] are just demolishing our chances at stopping another 9/11.”

LaBosco further stated that before marshals were sent to the border, they were on “at least 5%” of flights, and the number “absolutely should” be higher than 5%. She added, “Back in the ’60s, there was no flight that took off without an air marshal on board. … Now, the American people are going to suffer because they think they’re going to be safe on an aircraft, and they’re just simply not.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

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