Posted on 06/09/2004 10:38:46 AM PDT by Ol' Dan Tucker
By JEAN HELLER, Times Staff WriterThe government has long denied that two days after the 9/11 attacks, the three were allowed to fly.
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| The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, better known as the 9/11 Commission, sent a list of questions to Tampa International Airport. It appears concerned with the handling of the Tampa flight. |
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TAMPA - Two days after the Sept. 11 attacks, with most of the nation's air traffic still grounded, a small jet landed at Tampa International Airport, picked up three young Saudi men and left.
The men, one of them thought to be a member of the Saudi royal family, were accompanied by a former FBI agent and a former Tampa police officer on the flight to Lexington, Ky.
The Saudis then took another flight out of the country. The two ex-officers returned to TIA a few hours later on the same plane.
For nearly three years, White House, aviation and law enforcement officials have insisted the flight never took place and have denied published reports and widespread Internet speculation about its purpose.
But now, at the request of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, TIA officials have confirmed that the flight did take place and have supplied details.
The odyssey of the small LearJet 35 is part of a larger controversy over the hasty exodus from the United States in the days immediately after 9/11 of members of the Saudi royal family and relatives of Osama bin Laden.
The terrorism panel, better known as the 9/11 Commission, said in April that it knew of six chartered flights with 142 people aboard, mostly Saudis, that left the United States between Sept. 14 and 24, 2001. But it has said nothing about the Tampa flight.
The commission's general counsel, Daniel Marcus, asked TIA in a letter dated May 25 for any information about "a chartered flight with six people, including a Saudi prince, that flew from Tampa, Florida on or about Sept. 13, 2001." He asked for the information no later than June 8.
TIA officials said they sent their reply on Monday.
The airport used aircraft tracking equipment normally assigned to a noise abatement program to determine the identity of all aircraft entering TIA airspace on Sept. 13, and found four records for the LearJet 35.
The plane first entered the airspace from the south, possibly from the Fort Lauderdale area, sometime after 3 p.m. and landed for the first time at 3:34 p.m. It took off at 4:37 p.m., headed north. It returned to Tampa at 8:23 p.m. and took off again at 8:48 p.m., headed south.
Author Craig Unger, who first disclosed the possibility of a post-9/11 Saudi airlift in his book House of Bush, House of Saud, said in an interview that he believes the jet came to Tampa a second time to drop off two former law enforcement agents from Tampa who accompanied three young Saudis to Lexington for security purposes.
The Saudis asked the Tampa Police Department to escort the flight, but the department handed off the assignment to Dan Grossi, a former member of the force, Unger said. Grossi recruited Manuel Perez, a retired FBI agent, to accompany him. Both described the flight to Unger as somewhat surreal.
"They got the approval somewhere," Perez is quoted as telling Unger. "It must have come from the highest levels of government."
While there is no manifest for those aboard the Lear flight to Kentucky, Unger says the foreign nationals left Lexington for London aboard a Boeing 727. That manifest lists eight Saudis, two Sudan nationals, one Tunisian, one Philippine citizen, one Egyptian and two British subjects.
Of those, three listed residences on Normandy Trace Drive in Tampa, and all of them held Florida drivers' licenses. They are Ahmad Al Hazmi, then 19, Fahad Al Zeid, then 20, and Talal M. Al Mejrad, then 18, all male Saudis.
It is not known which, if any, is a Saudi prince.
Perez, the former FBI agent on the flight, could not be located this week, and Grossi declined to talk about the experience.
"I'm over it," he said in a telephone interview. "The White House, the FAA and the FBI all said the flight didn't happen. Those are three agencies that are way over my head, and that's why I'm done talking about it."
Grossi did say that Unger's account of his participation in the flight is accurate.
The FAA is still not talking about the flights, referring all questions to the FBI, which isn't answering anything, either. Nor is the 9/11 Commission.
Unger's book criticizes the Bush administration for allowing so many Saudis, including the relatives of bin Laden, to leave the country without being questioned thoroughly about the terrorist attacks.
Fifteen of the 19 men who hijacked four airlines on Sept. 11 were Saudi, as is bin Laden.
The 9/11 Commission, which has said the flights out of the United States were handled appropriately by the FBI, appears concerned with the handling of the Tampa flight.
"What information, if any, do you have about the screening by law enforcement personnel - including law enforcement personnel affiliated with the airport facility - of individuals on this flight?" the commission asked TIA.
The TIA Police Department said a check of its records indicated no member of its force screened the Lear's passengers.
Despite evidence that the flight occurred, several new questions have arisen.
Raytheon Aircraft is the only facility at TIA that services general aviation, which includes charter flights. When appropriate, Raytheon collects landing fees from those aircraft for TIA and reports to TIA on the flights.
According to airport records, Raytheon collected landing fees from only two aircraft on Sept. 13, one of them a Lear 35. But according to the record, the registration on the Lear is 505RP, a tail number which, according to the latest federal records, is assigned to a Cessna Citation based in Kalamazoo, Mich., and Oskar Rene Poch.
Poch confirmed Tuesday that he owns a Citation with that tail number and did before the terrorist attacks.
"Somebody must have gotten the registration number wrong in Tampa," he said.
TIA spokeswoman Brenda Geoghagan said it is believed the Lear's Sept. 13 journey began in Fort Lauderdale, possibly at a charter company called Hop-a-Jet Inc. The fact that the four trips in and out of Tampa all carried the flight designation "HPJ32" lends support to that idea.
But an official of Hop-a-Jet who wouldn't identify himself said the company does not own an aircraft with the registration number 505RP. Furthermore, he said, if that tail number is assigned to a Cessna Citation, the company doesn't own any Citations, either.
Most of the aircraft allowed to fly in U.S. airspace on Sept. 13 were empty airliners being ferried from the airports where they made quick landings on Sept. 11. The reopening of the airspace included paid charter flights, but not private, nonrevenue flights.
"Whether such a (LearJet) flight would have been legal hinges on whether somebody paid for it," said FAA spokesman William Shumann. "That's the key."
- Times researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this report.
Ping
True, the article states "most...still grounded", but tisn't I who is trying to leave false impressions. Check out what I found in an article dated Thursday September 13, 2001, link in #45:
U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta said commercial and private planes would be allowed to fly effective 11 a.m. EDT Thursday.
"aircraft tracking equipment normally assigned to a noise abatement program"
Very interesting. I hadn't looked before to see who wrote the article - now that I see it was Jean Heller, I know it was written by a reporter with an agenda.
Ms Heller fancies herself an investigative reporter completely wasted in what she calls "The retirement capitol of the world." She keeps waiting for the NYT to discover her. Before this flight story, her most celebrated article was in early 1991, when she looked at satellite photos and "proved" that there were no Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait - and that (gasp!) Colin Powell was dragging us into war for no reason.
Ho hum. Another reporter with ambition and a heart full of bitterness.
Ha! I figured you'd know about this dame.
Well, isn't she special.
I've been wondering for years if she's the same Jean Heller as my 9th grade English teacher.
You're kidding! Can you imagine having been taught by such a person?! I would think a call to the newsroom and an inquiry into her cv might reveal all.
I'm not sure I'd want to know, though. LOL
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See my post #40: "It's not in our logs ... it didn't occur,'' said Chris White, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration's regional office in Atlanta."
Did your search turn up any explanation for this flight and why the FAA denied it took place?
The links you provided pointed to news stories about the shuttling of aircraft that the commercial airlines did after the FAA lifted the nationwide TFR, but did nothing to address the subject of the news article which is the subject of this thread.
Instead you seem to be saying that the shuttling of aircraft by flight crews that took place after 11am with commercial service resuming on an extremely limited basis later in the afternoon explains the flight of the Lear carrying Saudi royalty from Florida to Kentucky.
Did the FAA deny that any other flight occurred that day?
Did they correct as a mis-statement the quote of their spokesman, Chris White?
Did Chris White himself correct himself, saying that their review of their logs showed that the Lear flight did take place?
No, I don't seem to be saying that. I was addressing the other issue--the claim by the Moores and others that all other flights were grounded and these flights (which certainly has been discussed ad nauseum since September 2001) were the only ones in the entire U.S. to be airborne.
There are several aspects of the tale that are being wielded to imply the Bush administration did something wrong or is hiding something. They didn't. I didn't have to search about reasons for the flight, it's long been explained. They were gathered in a central location and at a later date left the country. Three years later and despite the implications some try to throw around, there has been no evidence any terrorists or sympathizers were allowed to leave.
Since it's long been explained, as you say, and has been investigated and shown that no terrorists or sympathizers were on the flight from Tampa to Kentucky, then perhaps you can point me to a list of names of those who were on the Lear flight.
Do we have a list of all 140-odd people who were on these other flights allowed to leave or are we to take the government's word that none were terrorists or sympathizers?
No it's not. But why can't anybody else make that point as clear as you have?
Because they have another agenda?
This is rehash story from a year old INACCURATE report from World Net Daily.
From the 9-11 Commission (And the 59 Deceits in Fahrenheit 9/11)
***When did the bin Ladens actually leave? Not until the next week, as the the 9/11 Commission staff report explains:
Fearing reprisals against Saudi nationals, the Saudi government asked for help in getting some of its citizens out of the country….we have found that the request came to the attention of Richard Clarke and that each of the flights we have studied was investigated by the FBI and dealt with in a professional manner prior to its departure.
No commercial planes, including chartered flights, were permitted to fly into, out of, or within the United States until September 13, 2001. After the airspace reopened, six chartered flights with 142 people, mostly Saudi Arabian nationals, departed from the United States between September 14 and 24. One flight, the so-called Bin Ladin flight, departed the United States on September 20 with 26 passengers, most of them relatives of Usama Bin Ladin. We have found no credible evidence that any chartered flights of Saudi Arabian nationals departed the United States before the reopening of national airspace.
The Saudi flights were screened by law enforcement officials, primarily the FBI, to ensure that people on these flights did not pose a threat to national security, and that nobody of interest to the FBI with regard to the 9/11 investigation was allowed to leave the country. Thirty of the 142 people on these flights were interviewed by the FBI, including 22 of the 26 people (23 passengers and 3 private security guards) on the Bin Ladin flight. Many were asked detailed questions. None of the passengers stated that they had any recent contact with Usama Bin Ladin or knew anything about terrorist activity.
The FBI checked a variety of databases for information on the Bin Ladin flight passengers and searched the aircraft. It is unclear whether the TIPOFF terrorist watchlist was checked. At our request, the Terrorist Screening Center has rechecked the names of individuals on the flight manifests of these six Saudi flights against the current TIPOFF watchlist. There are no matches.
The FBI has concluded that nobody was allowed to depart on these six flights who the FBI wanted to interview in connection with the 9/11 attacks, or who the FBI later concluded had any involvement in those attacks. To date, we have uncovered no evidence to contradict this conclusion.
That's an interesting possibility, I hadn't considered that.
Nice story but it doesn't really make much sense.
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