(2) No one witnessed the hijackers at the security checkpoints
As for flights AA11 and UA175, which reportedly left from Logan Airport, Boston, the 9/11 Commission found that “[n]one of the [security] checkpoint supervisors recalled the hijackers or reported anything suspicious regarding their screening.”{132} Carter Bibbey, a manager for Globe Aviation Services Corp., who was supervising screeners at the American Airlines terminal in Boston, told the Boston Globe on 10 October 2001 that his five screeners didn’t detect any weapons — either legal or illegal on the morning of 9/11.{133}
As for flight AA77, which reportedly left from Dulles Airport, Washington, D.C., the 9/11 Commission wrote that “[w]hen the local civil aviation security office of the FAA later investigated these security screening operations, the screeners recalled nothing unusual. They could not recall that any of the passengers they screened were CAPPS selectees.”{134} As for flight UA93, which reportedly left from Newark Liberty International Airport, the 9/11 Commission indicated that the “FAA interviewed the screeners later; none recalled anything unusual or suspicious.”{135} According to an undated FBI report, the ““FBI collected 14 knives or portions of knives at the Flight 93 crash site.”{136} Yet no screener mentioned coming across a single knife that morning.{137}
A seasoned Israeli security expert, Rafi Ron, President of New Age Security Solutions, with thirty years’ experience in security, intelligence and counterterrorism for the government of Israel and formerly Director of Security at Tel-Aviv Ben-Gurion International airport, addressed the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on 21 September 2005. He said:
I would like to point out that the Achilles heel of the suicide terrorist is his behavior. A person intending to commit an extreme act of violence, in most cases for the first time in his/her life, as well as to terminate his own life is most likely not to behave like the ordinary people around him going about their daily routines. A signal example is Richard Reid (the “shoe bomber”), who was clearly detected by both security and non-security personnel as a suspicious person before and during boarding AA flight from Paris (Dec. 2001).{138}
In the light of the above testimony, it is significant that no security employee noted anything suspicious in the behavior of the 19 persons who allegedly were intending to commit an extreme act of violence and to terminate their own life within the next hour.
(3) No one witnessed the hijackers boarding the aircraft
Normally airline employees tear off the stubs of passengers' boarding cards and observe the boarding of aircraft at the departure gates. Under the circumstances of 9/11, one could have expected to read interviews with some of these airline employees, because they were the last to see the passengers alive. Yet no such interview is known to have taken place. The 9/11 Commission does not mention the existence of any deposition or testimony by airline personnel who saw the “hijackers” or any other passenger board the aircraft. As a response to my request to interview American Airlines gate agents of flight AA77, the airline responded that their identities cannot be revealed for privacy reasons.{139} Among the FBI documents released in 2009, I found interviews with Liset Frometa (conducted on 11 September 2001){140} and Maria Jackson (conducted on 22 September 2001),{141} who testified to have worked at gate 32 for flight AA11, and one FBI 302-form recording an interview with an unidentified female employee of American Airlines who testified on 11 September 2001 that she “worked the gate for AA flight 11” and “boarded the passengers for this flight” but did not mention the gate number.{142} Neither of these ladies mentioned having seen any of the alleged hijackers. Maria Jackson was shown a “photo spread of subjects” but did not recognize anyone.
(4) Dubious security videos
Apparently, none of the three airports from which the four 9/11 aircraft reportedly departed (Boston Logan, Newark International and Dulles Airport, Washington, D.C.) possessed surveillance cameras at the boarding gates. There exists thus neither eyewitness testimony nor a visual documentation of the boarding process.
The Boston Herald reported a few weeks after 9/11 that Logan Airport has no security videos in the terminals, gate areas or concourses.{143} Logan officials acknowledged this 'deficiency'. This is significant because two of the 9/11 flights originated from Logan airport.{144}
According to the 9/11 Commission's staff, Newark International Airport, from which flight UA93 reportedly departed, did not have such equipment either.{145} According to the 9/11 Commission's Final Report, "there is no documentary evidence to indicate when the hijackers passed through the [security] checkpoint[s], what alarms may have been triggered or what security procedures were administered."{146}
Yet many people are convinced that they have seen footage of the suspected hijackers passing through security checks. Indeed, some footage was shown around the world on television, but not the boarding process of any aircraft. What was shown was footage from Portland (Maine) Jetport and from Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C.
The footage from Portland Jetport purports to show suspects ‘Atta’ and ‘Alomari’ passing the security checkpoint before they board a connecting flight to Boston on the morning of 11 September 2001. The authenticity of the footage has been disputed for two reasons: (1) Michael Tuohey, who carried out the check-in of the men at the Portland Jetport, said on CNN that they were “very business looking. They had on ties and jackets." After being shown the security video, he found it curious that „they both have like open collar. They have like dress shirts with open collar...but that’s them."{147} (2) The security video displays two different recording times, as shown below.{148}
Kenneth R. Anderson, the pilot of Colgan Air flight 5930, which carried the two men from Portland to Boston on the morning of 9/11, said he remembered two Arabic or Mid-Eastern males who were passengers on that flight. They were the last to board the aircraft and the last to exit the aircraft and sat in the last row of the plane. He described one of the individuals as wearing glasses.{149} Yet neither ‘Alomari’ nor ‘Atta’ are known to have worn glasses. Anderson also said that one of them was 5’9” and the other 5’11” tall. According to an FAA certified copy of Atta’s airman file, Atta’s height was 5’7.”{150} No information is available on ‘Alomari’s height.
But even if the video recording from Portland were authentic,{151} in the sense of depicting two persons resembling ‘Atta’ and ‘Alomari’, it does not tell us what they did after they arriving in Boston.
„Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari" at Portland Jetport on 11 September 2001
The other footage shown on TV and found on internet sites,{152} purports to depict the alleged hijackers of flight AA77 as they pass through the security checkpoint at Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. This recording was not released voluntarily by the U.S. government, but was forced out in 2004 by the Motley Rice law firm representing some survivors’ families.{153} According to the 9/11 Commission, the video “recorded all passengers, including the hijackers, as they were screened.”{154} Yet none of the publicly available versions of this recording shows the passengers from flight AA77, some of whom were well known nationally. Another version of this video emerged years later from somewhere. It was not either authenticated by official sources.
Jay Kolar, who published a critical analysis of this footage,{155} made an important point: He pointed out that the recording lacks a camera identification number and a time stamp (date:time clock). Joe Vialls, who also analyzed this video recording in 2004, elaborated: “Just this single terminal at Dulles Airport has well over 100 such cameras, everyone of them with an individual camera identification number and date-time clock of its own.”{156} He explained: “On-film data [such as camera number and date-time stamp] is essential, of course, because it would be extremely difficult to track a target around the airport without