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Sleep-deprived, medicated, suicidal and armed: Federal air marshals in disarray

(CNN)It was just before 3 a.m. on July 31, 2013, when a federal law enforcement officer left Room 634 of the Sheraton Syracuse University Hotel, stood underneath a flagpole, put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. The single shell casing landed near a bench next to his body.

Shortly after police arrived to investigate the shooting, so did the taxi driver who was due to take the agent to his next assignment. The dead man lying on the ground was an armed federal air marshal, a plainclothes officer whose job was to protect aircraft from terrorists. He took his life just hours before his next scheduled mission, a US Airways flight from Syracuse, New York, to Washington.

CNN has learned he is one of 10 federal air marshals who have committed suicide since 2002.

There have also been questionable accidental deaths -- such as a drowning and even a parachuting accident.

According to representatives of the Air Marshal Association, the number of federal air marshals who have killed themselves could be higher, and it is mainly due to stress.

A CNN investigation has uncovered evidence the federal air marshal sitting on your next flight may be sleep-deprived, medicated, under the influence of alcohol or worse.

And CNN has learned the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration may have been hiding the problem for years.

Sonya Hightower, a recently retired federal air marshal and an officer with the newly formed Air Marshal Association, says brutal schedules -- and an even more brutal management within the Federal Air Marshal Service -- could be putting the air marshals' lives at risk and the flying public's lives in danger.

The problem, she says, stems from management that has for years placed air marshals in schedules that are physically impossible to carry out without compromising one's health.

Typical assignments include domestic missions with three to four flights a day, or quick turns on overnight international routes. Add to that the expectation that an air marshal has to be awake, alert and ready to take down a terrorist at any moment on every flight.

"Now do that 14, 15, 16 hours a day. Anybody's patience, anybody's ability to function at the highest level is going to be compromised," Hightower told CNN.

When airline schedules get delayed, so does an air marshal's sleep, which Hightower says management cares little about.

'A cry for help'

In April of 2014, sources tell CNN, a federal air marshal sitting in a cubicle in a Federal Air Marshal Service field office in West Orange, New Jersey, shot himself in the leg.

John Casaretti, a senior federal air marshal and president of the Air Marshal Association, says he believes the shooting "was a cry for help."

"I believe that the culture the agency's developed here is mind-numbing, toxic."

CNN has learned of only one incident during an actual flight. Sources say an air marshal had to be restrained by other members of the security team during a flight from Africa, where an intoxicated air marshal got into an altercation with the flight crew.

Casaretti says the New Jersey shooting, the suicides, in-flight mental breakdown and high alcohol and medication use by federal air marshals are the result of grueling schedules that include endless seemingly worthless assignments, leaving air marshals sleep-deprived and suffering in their relationships at home.

A disturbing study

In fact, the government has evidence that armed air marshals are so dangerously sleep-deprived that it could affect their ability to thwart a terrorist attack.

In 2012, the TSA was given results of a commissioned sleep study on air marshals. The results of the study -- now classified as sensitive security information -- were disturbing.

Seventy-five percent of air marshals flying domestic missions were sleep-deficient.

On international runs, the figure rose to more than 84%.

In a job where it is critical to be alert and accurate at a moment's notice, the study finds "the acute and chronic lack of sleep substantially degrades a Federal Air Marshal's ability to react and think quickly."

The study, conducted by the Division of Sleep Medicine of Brigham and Women's Hospital at Harvard Medical School, found half of federal air marshals take some medication or supplement to get to sleep. Others commented they turn to alcohol.

Asked in a survey if they consumed as much as five to six beverages a week, one air marshal responded, "Give us a break Harvard!! 8-12 per night on an overnighter, and the same just to sleep at home."

Other air marshals echoed that response.

"Most of the sleep patterns that I have are broken."

"This is not healthy."

"I need to take sleep aids."

"alcoholic drinks ... mixed with sleeping pills."

The study, obtained by CNN, says federal air marshals suffering from fatigue have increased risk of "self injury ... fatigue-related motor vehicle accidents, and greater incidence of serious errors."

"The agency was put on notice with the sleep study that air marshals will make mistakes," said Casaretti, noting that the study recommends an equal amount of recovery time vs. travel time.

"That would never happen," he said. "So, they chew us up and spit us out year after year after year."

Sonya Hightower took part in the study, and she says for the last three years, the Department of Homeland Security has been trying to hide the results.

"Air marshals are exhausted," she said. "They are having memory loss, they are being forgetful. At some point, they are working long enough hours that they are legally intoxicated. ... They can't move. They can't respond fast to things. And the agency was not prepared for someone to document that as well as Harvard did in their study."