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THE PERPLEXING PUZZLE OF THE PUBLISHED
PASSENGER LISTS
by Gary North
Maybe you like puzzles. I hope so.
I don't like them. I regard them as a challenge, not a game. I
avoid them because, when I cannot find a solution, my mind won't stop
working on them. Then I get very frustrated. So, I
avoid
magic shows, crossword puzzles, and similar brain-
twisters.
Yet I am also a historian with a
Ph.D. Historians are trained to solve puzzles with insufficient
pieces. Historians never have all of the evidence that they would like in
order to come up with a coherent explanation of what happened. They
always want another piece in the puzzle before they go into print.
(Of course, once they go into print, they will tend to reject any newly
discovered piece that messes up their version of the completed
puzzle.) At some point, they are supposed to come to a
conclusion. They are supposed to make a judgment about what
happened.
I am presently stuck. So,
I am sending out this report. Maybe there is someone my list who can
get me unstuck.
Years ago, I saw a movie,
"My Cousin Vinnie." Vinnie was studying to be a lawyer. He
wasn't a good classroom student, but he had a unique ability. He
could figure out how things fit together. Show him a magic trick,
and he
could tell you how the magician did it. Tell him a story
with a missing link, and he could identify where the missing link was, and
maybe what it was. He could solve
puzzles.
I am trying to locate
Vinnie.
This puzzle is no game. The
United States has gone to war on the basis of one solution to this
puzzle. We have not yet been told what this solution
is.
The puzzle begins with the crash
of four airliners. We must work our way backward from
this.
To do this, I decided to begin with
official information that was published 16 days after the attack. To
work my way backwards, I first leaped forward.
ALLEGED
HIJACKERS
On September 27, the Associated
Press released a story about the hijackers. The version that I read,
published in the ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, referred to these men as
alleged hijackers. I shall do the
same.
I located this article by using www.daypop.com. Daypop is the most
complete archive of recent news stories on the Web. Daypop allows
you to search for stories that are up to four weeks
old.
I searched for "passenger list" and
"hijackers." Daypop produced three pages of links -- not that many.
Almost all of these links were to the same AP story, which was published
by numerous on-line news sources. Here is
the version I
used.
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/terrorism/nation/0927hijackerlist.html
The headline reads: "FBI releases updated list of alleged
hijackers." Above the headline is a link that says, "Click here to
see 19 suspected hijackers." I clicked it. A large box popped
up. It took a while for the photos to appear. There are 19
photos, along with names. The names appear to be Middle Eastern --
Arabs. Most of the men look like Arabs, although a few might pass as
Mexicans. Only one of them looked vaguely like a
European.
They are divided into four
lists, according to which flight they are said to have boarded.
There were five men on American Airlines Flight 77, five on AA Flight 11,
five on United Airlines Flight 175, and four on UA Flight 93 -- the flight
that crashed in Pennsylvania.
Let's return
to the AP story itself. We read the
following:
As Attorney General John
Ashcroft launched a "national neighborhood watch" with the release of the
photos, FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged that questions remained
about whether an accompanying list contained the true names of the
19.
"What we are currently doing is
determining whether, when these individuals came to the United States,
these were their real names or they changed their names for use with false
identification in the United States," Mueller
said.
The FBI director said there was
evidence that one or more of the hijackers had had contacts with al-Qaida,
the network associated with Osama bin Laden, the exiled Saudi millionaire
who is the Bush administration's top suspect in the
attacks.
This story indicates that, as of
September 27, the FBI was not certain whether these suspects had used
their real names. The remainder of the story listed each of their
names, along with possible aliases. The aliases all look like Arab
names.
I have discovered no additional
information released to the general public regarding these
suspects.
I now backtrack to the morning
of September 11. The issue that I am trying to deal with is airline
security. To draw rational conclusions about how the
alleged
hijackers accomplished their acts of terrorism, we must begin
with airline security.
The United
States has now gone to war because of a breakdown somewhere in airline
security procedures. Yet nobody in government is blaming the
specific airlines. They are blaming the procedures. This is why I
want you mentally to go through the procedures with me. I have hit a
brick wall. I am asking you to help me knock it down. I will
show you how I went through the procedures mentally.
See if you can
figure out which step I missed.
Step One
is check-in.
STEP ONE: CHECK-IN
On September 11, airline check-in counters were the only places in the
United States that required travelers to present a photo ID in order to
travel. A photo ID meant (and still means) a card issued by some
branch of civil government. Years ago, the United States government
took the first step toward a national ID card when it mandated the
requirement that all passengers present a photo ID card
before being
allowed to get on a commercial
airplane.
This means that the
tightest security that the typical American ever confronts is airport
security. This is the model for all other security systems governing
the general public.
Let's go through the
check-in routine together. Pretend that it's September 11, and you
are a check-in agent at either a United Airlines counter or an American
Airlines counter. It is your job to ask the standard
questions. "Did you pack your own luggage? Have you had it in
your possession at all times?" Then you ask for a photo ID.
The name on the ID must match the name on the ticket. The photo must
match the person presenting the card.
I
began with American Airlines, Flight 11. This was the plane that
crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. I began with
the list of passengers. This was not difficult. The passenger
lists for all four planes are posted on CNN's
Website.
Click on the link.
This is a long link for the formatting of my newsletter. If it is
broken on your screen, you will have to paste it into your Web browser's
address box. This will take two steps.
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/AA11.victims.html
The CNN page says that there were 92 people on board. I suggest that
you print out the list. Part of my exercise was to count the names
of the passengers. Besides, you never know when a Web page will
disappear.
Do you have the print-out
in front of you? Count the names. I get 86 names, including
the crew. But the CNN page says 92 people were on
board.
None of the 86 names is an
Arab name. This is very, very strange. First, how did the CNN
list-compiler know that there were 92 people on board? Five of them
are not listed. Second, how did anyone get on board who was not on
the list of ticketed passengers?
To get
onto the flight legally, each passenger had to have a ticket with his or
her name on it. Each passenger had to present a photo ID to the
check-in agent. The check-in agent was supposed to look at the
picture and the person, and then make a judgment. Was it the same
person? If the mandated procedure was followed, the check-in agent decided
that the ticket's name, the photo ID's name, the photo, and the
ID-holder's face all matched. If there was any doubt, the check-in
agent was supposed to ask for some other form of identification. If
there was none, the person was not allowed to board the
plane.
We are told by the United States
government that five Arabs somehow got through this initial screening
procedure. How did they do this? This is puzzle number one regarding
Flight 11. Puzzle number two has to do with the
incomplete
passenger list.
Airlines
keep a list of passengers on board. This is for insurance purposes,
should there be a crash. It is also for the purpose of notifying
relatives after a crash. It is also for the purpose of in-cabin
screening. "Has everyone paid who is on the plane?" And,
finally, is there a hijacker on board?
On
American Airlines Flight 11, there were no Arab names on the passenger
list. So, how does the government know who the hijackers
were?
Why does CNN's Web page list 92
dead, when there are only 86 name listed? Who was the
non-Arab?
I have seen nothing about
government accusations against American Airlines for substandard check-in
security procedures. In fact, I have seen nothing about the
discrepancy between the published names and the published numbers
regarding how many people were on board.
Let's go to American Airlines Flight 77. This plane crashed into the
Pentagon.
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/AA77.victims.html
We are told that 64 people were on board. I count 56, including 6
crew members. There is no explanation offered for the absence of 8
names. There is no Arab name on this
list.
Something is definitely wrong
here.
What about United
Airlines? Did the company's employees follow the same check-in
procedure? Presumably, they did. I checked Flight 175, which
crashed into the south tower.
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/ua175.victims.html
There were 56 people on board, according to CNN's summation. I
printed out the list. I counted the names. Once again, they
don't add up. The summation says there were 2 pilots, 7 flight
attendants, and 56 passengers. I counted the names. The total
is 56 -- the number attributed to the passengers. Nine names are
missing. None of the listed names is Arab.
This leaves United Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania. It had
45 people on board, according to the summation.
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/ua93.victims.html
Again, there is a discrepancy. Only 33 names appear on the
list. A dozen names are missing. Among the missing names are
the four Arabs who allegedly hijacked the
plane.
So, the published names in no
instance match the total listed for the number of people on board.
CNN really should offer an explanation for this
discrepancy.
In no case does an Arab name
appear on a list, let alone one of the alleged
hijackers.
How did CNN fail to count the
names accurately? Did the airlines not provide the full list of each
flight's names? Perhaps so.
This raises the next question. How did the airlines know how many
people were on each of these flights? The airlines must have had a
list for each flight. What possible reason could they have had for
not releasing the full lists? Finally, why are there no Arabs listed
on any of these lists, let alone the specific Arabs identified by the
Attorney General and the head of the FBI in an Associated Press
story?
I do not understand how 19 Arabs
could have evaded the check-in procedures. I also do not understand
why every passenger's name is not on the published
lists.
I have seen no other source
of the passenger lists. (Another search word: "manifests.") It
has now been over a month since the attack. Where is a complete
list? I don't know. Where is a complete list of all four
flights that has the alleged hijackers' names on it? I don't
know.
Finally, where is some enterprising
reporter who is trying to get answers? I don't
know.
What about Step Two?
STEP
TWO: ON-BOARD SEATING
There were multiple
terrorists in the cabin of each plane when the plane left the
ground. They did not get there through the ticket-screening
system. Or did they?
Continued at:
http://www.pufoin.com/conspiracy/tdn_101401.shtml |
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