Within hours of the operation, the FBI began to interview airline and airport employees who could provide information about what they had experienced that morning before and during the boarding of these flights. It can be safely assumed that all relevant evidence about the boarding of the four aircraft has been obtained by the FBI.
This chapter deals with one, and only one, question, namely: Did the individuals designated by the U.S. government as the hijackers of 9/11 board the designated flights?
It must be stated that even if these individuals had boarded these four flights, it does not necessarily prove that they did what they were accused of having done. In order to accuse them of mass murder, other evidence would be needed to prove that they actually hijacked the airliners and caused them to crash at the designated sites.
Shortly after the FBI released names and photographs of the alleged hijackers, questions about their identities began to emerge. The family of Hamza Alghamdi, one of the alleged hijackers, said the photo released by the FBI "has no resemblance to him at all.”{91} CNN showed a picture of another alleged hijacker, identified as Saeed Alghamdi. That man, a pilot, was alive and working in Tunisia.{92} The photograph of a Saudi pilot by the name of Waleed Al Shehri was released by the FBI as one of the alleged hijackers: he protested his innocence from Casablanca, Morocco.{93} Two people with the name of Abdulaziz Alomari presented themselves, surprised to see their names on the FBI list of suspected hijackers. One of them, a Saudi engineer, said he lost his passport while studying in Denver, Colorado, in 1995. Of the FBI list, he said: "The name is my name and the birth date is the same as mine. But I am not the one who bombed the World Trade Center in New York."{94} Another Abdulaziz Alomari was found working as a pilot with Saudi Airlines.{95} Salem Alhazmi, also listed by the FBI as an alleged hijacker, was indignant at being named as a suspect for a mass murder. He said he works in petrochemical plant in Yanbu (Saudi Arabia).{96} Abdul Rahman Al-Haznawi, brother of another suspect, said “There is no similarity between the photo published [on Thursday] and my brother.” He said he does not believe his brother was involved in the crime: “He never had any such intention.”{97} Gaafar Allagany, the Saudi government’s chief spokesman in the United States, said in an interview in Washington that the hijackers probably stole the identities of legitimate Saudi pilots.{98} The FBI maintained the names and photographs it originally posted on its website as those "believed to be the hijackers" of 9/11,{99} including those of living individuals. The 9/11 Commission did not at all address these conflicting reports. The passive and tentative formulation used by the FBI in attributing the crime to particular perpetrators, remains the official position of the agency.
One basic goal of a criminal investigation is to identify the perpetrators. To prove that specific individuals could have hijacked an aircraft, it must be first demonstrated that they boarded that aircraft. To demonstrate this fact, the following four classes of evidence should have been produced by the U.S. authorities in September 2001 or shortly thereafter:
1 Authenticated flight manifests,{100} listing the names of all the passengers and crew members, including those suspected of hijacking;
2 Authenticated security videos from the airports, which depict the passengers (and the alleged hijackers);
3 Sworn testimonies of personnel who attended the boarding of the aircraft;
4 Formal identification of the bodies or bodily remains from the crash sites, including chain-of-custody reports.
The scope of this chapter is limited to examining whether the U.S. government has produced the above four classes of minimal evidence and if so, whether that evidence is admissible, relevant and compelling. If such evidence does not exist or is deemed to lack credibility, it shall be presumed that these individuals did not board the aircraft and that, consequently, no “Islamic hijackings” had taken place.
(1) No authenticated flight manifests
The primary source used by airlines to identify the victims of aircraft crashes is the flight manifest. A flight manifest is a legal document proving — also for insurance purposes — that particular individuals boarded an aircraft. To ensure the reliability of flight manifests airlines check the identities of passengers who board the aircraft. In order to serve as legal documents, flight manifests must be duly authenticated by those responsible for their accuracy, including by their signature.
With regard to the four 9/11 flights, American and United Airlines have consistently refused to demonstrate that they possess authenticated manifests of these flights. Surprisingly, neither the corporate media nor the 9/11 Commission demanded the release of these authenticated documents.
Between 11 and 14 September 2001, the mainstream media published names of the alleged hijackers and passengers. Some of these names were then deleted and replaced by other names. These irregularities are examined below.
(a) Adding and deleting passengers' names
On 13 September 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that “between three and six individuals on each of the hijacked airplanes were involved” in the hijackings.{101} Later at a press briefing, he specified that there were exactly 18 "hijackers" – five on each of flights AA11 and UA175 and four on the others.{102} On the same day FBI Director Robert Mueller said that a “preliminary investigation indicated 18 hijackers were on the four planes -- five on each of the two planes that crashed into the World Trade Center, and four each on the planes that crashed into the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania.”{103} A day later the number grew to 19.{104}
On 14 September 2001, the name of Mosear Caned (phon.) was released by CNN as one of the suspected hijackers on "a list of names (...) that is supposed to be officially released by [the Justice Department] sometime later today".{105} His name disappeared a few hours later from the list of suspects and replaced with that of Hani Hanjour when CNN posted a new list of suspects released by the FBI.{106} It was never revealed where Caned's name came from in the first place, who this person was supposed to be, or why the name was later replaced by “Hani Hanjour.”{107} No other passenger (or "hijacker") bore a name resembling Mosear Caned.
The Washington Post reported, however, that the original flight manifest did not include the name of Hani Hanjour, later named as the pilot of flight AA77. In its final edition of 16 September 2001 the Post explained that Hanjour’s name "was not on the American Airlines manifest for [flight 77] because he may not have had a ticket."{108} This report fits with the declaration by Attorney General Ashcroft of 13 September 2001 that only four "hijackers" had been on flight AA77.{109} The counsel for American Airlines, in a letter to the 9/11 Commission of 15 March 2004, also appears to confirm the absence of Hanjour from that flight, writing, “We have not been able to determine if Hani Hanjour checked in at the main ticket counter.“{110} Yet Hanjour's name appears later on an unauthenticated passenger list of flight AA77.
According to CNN on 14 September 2001, "federal sources initially identified [Adnan] Bukhari and Ameer Bukhari as possible hijackers who boarded one of the planes that originated in Boston." (emphasis added). Yet, a few hours later, CNN issued the following correction: "Based on information from multiple law enforcement sources, CNN reported that Adnan Bukhari and Ameer Bukhari of Vero Beach Florida, were suspected to be two of the pilots who crashed planes into the World Trade Center. CNN later learned that Adnan Bukhari is still in Florida, where he was questioned by the FBI...Ameer Bukhari died in a small plane crash" on 11 September 2000. CNN attributed this information to "federal sources.” These names disappeared from unauthenticated passenger lists published later and replaced by new names.
On 12 September 2001, various newspapers published partial passenger lists of the crashed flights. These reports included the names of Jude Larson, 31, and his wife, Natalie, 24, referred to as passengers aboard flight AA11.{111} A person who claimed to be a friend of Jude’s father, Steve Jocelyn of Lahaina on Hawaii, told the Honolulu Advertiser that Jude