What is the evidence that the hijackers used "box-cutters" and "plastic knives"?

Edward Jay Epstein (website) ^ | 3 June 2002 | Edward Jay Epstein

[Kermit]

Question:

In response to questions about the advance warning President Bush received from the CIA concerning a possible hijacking plot, his press spokesman Ari Fleischer (identified by the New York Times as the anonymous “senior administration official) replied in his daily press briefing on May 15th, 2002: "The administration, based on hijackings, notified the appropriate agencies and, I think, that's one of the reasons that you saw that the people who committed the 9-11 attacks used box cutters and plastic knives to get around America's system of protecting against hijackings."

What is the evidence that the hijackers who took over the Boeing 767s that crashed into the World Trade Center “used box cutters and plastic knives?”

Answer:

There is zero evidence of box-cutters on either plane that hit the World Trade Center. Not a single flight crew member or passenger on American Airlines Flight 11 or United Airlines Flight 175 reported seeing box-cutters or plastics knives. Nor were they mentioned in the FAA executive summary on any of the hijacked plane.(LINK FAA MEMO.) Only on American Airlines Flight 77, which hit the Pentagon, was there a near-mention by one passenger that the hijackers in the back of the plane had knives and "card-board cutters," and even that passenger to claim to see what weapons were actually used to hijack the plane. The claim by administration officials that plastic knives were used to hijack the planes is pure invention. (See Fictoid #9)

Since unlike guns, metal knives and bombs, it was legal for airline passengers on September 11th 2001 to carry aboard box-cutters and plastic knives, the claim that they used such devices to commandeer the planes that destroyed the World Trade Center is a functional fictoid. Not only does it serve to shield the airlines, airports and airport screeners from massive liability from the victims at the World Trade Center, it protects the Bush Administration by diverting attention away from concern that airport security at three Federally-supervised airports was dangerously lax.

Collateral Question:

Since CBS News quoted press briefer Ari Fleischer verbatim, why did the New York Times identify him anonymously as a “senior administration spokesman?”

[miamimark]

She [Barbara] had trouble getting through, because she wasn't using her cell phone - she was using the phone in the passengers' seats," said Mr Olson. "I guess she didn't have her purse, because she was calling collect, and she was trying to get through to the Department of Justice, which is never very easy." . "She wanted to know 'What can I tell the pilot? What can I do? How can I stop this?'"

Though the American Airlines Boeing 757 is fitted with individual telephones at each seat position, they are not of the variety where you can simply pick up the handset and ask for an operator. On many aircraft you can talk from one seat to another in the aircraft free of charge, but if you wish to access the outside world you must first swipe your credit card through the telephone. By Ted Olson's own admission, Barbara did not have a credit card with her.

It gets worse. On American Airlines there is a telephone "setup" charge of US$2.50 which can only be paid by credit card, then a US$2.50 (sometimes US$5.00) charge per minute of speech thereafter. The setup charge is the crucial element. Without paying it in advance by swiping your credit card you cannot access the external telephone network. Under these circumstances the passengers' seat phone on a Boeing 757 is a much use as a plastic toy.

Perhaps Ted Olson made a mistake and Barbara managed to borrow a credit card from a fellow passenger? Not a chance. If Barbara had done so, once swiped through the phone, the credit card would have enabled her to call whoever she wanted to for as long as she liked, negating any requirement to call collect.

[monday]

"No message was ever received from flight 175 that mentioned any weapons. So, for all anyone knows, the hijackers may have used guns, grenades, poison gas or any other weapon "

Ok, he seems to be saying that since there is no evidence that they used box cutters they must have used guns or granades. Does anyone else see the utter stupidity of his assumptions.

A hint, there also is no evidence that they used guns or granades or whatever.

Its clear to me that the weapon used was stinky cheese.</sarcasm

[Nick Danger]

This search for somebody on our side to blame pisses me off. These people make it sound like being searched and stripped is just a normal part of getting on an airplane, and if somebody didn't do it right that day, it's their fault that a gang of suicidal madmen from Islamic Hell were able to pull off a plan they'd been working on for five years.

That whole line of reasoning is so much crap. Since when should ordinary human beings have to anticipate every possible act that a fanatical madman might come up with, and submit to whatever measures might be necessary to eliminate the threat? That way lies a police state, and worse.

Prudent measures to deter the occasional nutcase I can see, but the measures required to stop dedicated madmen funded by an even crazier millionaire fanatic are beyond what people should have to deal with on a daily basis. The better, and far cheaper alternative, is to hunt down and kill the millionaire fanatic and as many of his followers as can be found. On that, we're off to a good start. As for putting cyanide detectors in every kitchen, and metal detectors in every grocery store, and all the 10,000 other things we'd have to do to really protect ourselves from an infinite supply of evil crazy people... screw it. The far better path to safety is find the crazies where they live and kill them before they act. Every dollar spent on another explosives-detection machine is a dollar that could have gone to hunting these bastards down and killing them.

[luvbach1]

It wouldn't have been PC in that pre-911 era to describe them physically; particulary, by their color.

[Joan912]

The liberal press is incapable of printing anything regarding BillyBoy's culpability in the 911 attacks. During his crime-ridden administration, the press acted as his Red Guard - protecting and deflecting for 8 years.

Words cannot describe how much I utterly loathe and detest that man. I will never forgive him for the damage he and his hag wife have done to our fair nation.

Your questions are excellent, but don't hold your breath waiting for them to be asked...

[Terriergal]

Didn't the people who called out on their cell phones give this information about the weapons the subhumans had?

[vannrox]

Sorry. This is a bunch of uninformed nonsense. There is overwhelming evidence of the box cutters. Not only from the instructions in the letters that they left behind, and their computers. But also to the taped box cutters under the seats of other flights that were aborted. Let us not forget the wal-mart video on the night prior to the attack where they bought box cutters.


Geeze. Research before you write such blather.

[stanz]

How is it possible for plastic knives to have survived that inferno? Most likely, the terrorists disabled people with some type of pepper spray amd then either used box cutters or took knives from the galley to use as weapons. If the black boxes from the planes that hit the Towers were never recovered, I doubt much else could have survived.

[Terriergal]

hijackers used weapons that are distinctively different - - plastic knives.

I'm in mind of a movie I just watched again last night.... "Grosse Pointe Blank" - in which the weapon of choice was a ball point pen. Ball point pen to the jugular is certainly as deadly a weapon as a plastic knife. I can't imagine that a plastic knife is capable of holding any edge, unless someone can correct me here... ceramic maybe. HOWEVER plastic knives could be used to kill someone just as a ball point pen could, by puncture. However wrestling someone into position and puncturing someone's jugular would be a heck of a lot harder than slashing with a long edge,especially if someone had interfered.

[Terriergal]

I thought it was on her cell phone. Which is not allowed, generally but who is going to care, except the hijackers, in that case.

[Eowyn-of-Rohan]

I RECALL HEARING THE SAME THING, and RE BARBARA OLSEN, I THOUGHT SHE USED HER CELLPHONE TO CALL HER HUSBAND...what short memories we all have

[Terriergal]

your sentiment is duly noted. :-)

[gilor]

Any body ever think of one of these?

CIA Letter Opener

[Scott McCollum]

What is the evidence that Europeans used smallpox infected blankets to purposely kill Native Americans?

I hear that all the time from leftist historians who want to discredit Western Civilization, but do these historians have signed orders from Queen Isabella saying to dump smallpox blankets off on the Indians? Are there records from the Catholic Church about this conspiracy? Is it conjecture made a half millennium after the fact because a bunch of Indians died from a disease with smallpox-like symptoms? What?

Cell phone calls made to authorities from the hijacked flights talk about the Arab terrorists cutting the throat of a stewardess. Maybe it wasn't a "boxcutter" but the terrorist probably used a knife. I doubt the terrorist sliced that woman's throat with a copy of Eminem's new CD, kids.

[Terriergal]

I would think that if she picked up the phone and there was a way to get an operator, she would have been exempted from having to swipe her credit card due to the nature of the emergency... maybe... just like 911 calls are free on pay phones.

[usconservative]

Spot On Nick. Probably the most reasonable, well-thought through post I've read on FR in quite some time.

Ditto your comments, and BUMP!

[Terriergal]

I am also thinking that just because Olson didn't have her purse with her, doesn't mean she didn't have her credit card with her. My husband carries a very small cardholder instead of carrying his entire billfold.

[archy]

Anyone have any other info?

Uh-huh. Follows:

By Paul Sperry
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON – FBI investigators found a stout "fighting" knife among the wreckage at the United Airlines Flight 93 crash site in western Pennsylvania, says a federal official who reviewed photographs of evidence at FBI headquarters here.

It's no secret that Islamic terrorists carried knives on board Flight 93 and the three other planes they hijacked on Sept. 11, but they were widely thought to be box cutters and possibly other short-bladed knives.

Any knife with a blade less than four inches, including box cutters, was allowed on planes under Federal Aviation Administration rules before the attacks.

"One of the knives found at the crash site in Pennsylvania was one of those belt-clip, serrated, locking-blade knives," the official said. "Its design is purely and simply a fighting knife."

He added: "Knives such as these should not have been allowed through (airport) checkpoints," assuming the knife was not stowed in checked baggage.

Flight 93 took off from Newark, N.J.

The official, a specialist in aviation security, says he saw a large photograph of the so-called fighting knife, broken in "two or three pieces," hanging on the wall, along with other photos of evidence collected from crash sites that day, at the FBI's Strategic Information and Operations Center. SIOC [SY-OCK], as it's called, is where the FBI stages major crime investigations.

Hijacking ringleader Mohammed Atta bought two knives before the attacks – one on June 25, 2001, in Dubai, U.A.E., and another on July 8, 2001, in Zurich, Switzerland, according to the Justice Department's indictment of suspected "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui.

The FBI declined to comment on the Flight 93 knife.

"That would be considered evidence in an active investigation, so we can't comment," said FBI spokesman Paul Bresson.

---

Paul Sperry is Washington bureau chief for WorldNetDaily.

[archy]

An executive summary of an unpublished FAA memo stated:

"At approximately 9:18 am, it was reported that two crew members in the cockpit were stabbed. The flight then descended with no communications from the flight crew members. The American Airlines FAA Principal Security Inspector (PFI) was notified by Suzanne Clark of American airlines Corporate Headquarters that an on board flight attendant contacted American Airlines Operation Center and informed that a passenger located in seat 10B shot and killed a passenger in 9B at 9:20 am. The passenger killed was Daniel Lewin shot by Satam al-Suqama. One bullet was reported to have been fired." The information came from two cell phone calls made by flight attendants, Betty Ong and Madeline Amy Sweeney, to Americal Airlines ground controllers. Ong, who was in the first class compartment— and the only witness to the assault on the cockpit. She reported that she had seen four hijackers come from first-class seats, kill a passenger seated behind them, and use a chemical weapon which she described as "some sort of spray" that made her eyes burn and made it difficult for her to breathe." Madeline Amy Sweeney, the flight attendant in the rear compartment, call was not recorded. According to the ground controller, she said that the pilots, another flight attendant and a passenger had been stabbed or killed.
The FAA subsequently said that the report of a gun shot was an error proceeding from a "miscommunication". The ground controller did not recall a gun shot or a bullet being mentioned.

By Paul Sperry
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON – A Federal Aviation Administration official says a disputed high-level report detailing a shooting aboard American Airlines Flight 11 on Sept. 11 is not a mistaken first draft, as claimed by FAA management.

The official, a veteran security specialist, says he was at FAA headquarters here when the "executive summary" of the four hijacked flights was written late that tragic day for FAA Administrator Jane Garvey and other top managers.

"The document was reviewed for accuracy by a number of people in the room, including myself and a couple of managers of the operations center," he told WorldNetDaily.

"Nobody disputed it before I left work for the day," which was close to midnight, said the official, who asked to go unnamed.

His account is at odds with the FAA's.

According to FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown, the passage about hijacker Satam al-Suqami shooting and killing passenger Daniel Lewin with a single bullet on the flight out of Boston, was "corrected" that day in a "final summary" to Garvey. The alleged earlier draft was written at 5:31 p.m.

"That report was prepared for the evening. As soon as that piece of paper was prepared and people in security saw it, they said, 'No, no, no, no, we found out that wasn't true.' And it was corrected," Brown said in a Feb. 27 interview with WorldNetDaily. "So that was a draft of the final executive summary."

Brown told the Washington Post much the same thing in a March 2 article.

"By the end of the day, they knew that there had not been a gun on the aircraft," she was quoted as saying.

Asked again for a copy of the "final summary," Brown refused, reiterating that it is "protected information." She would not explain why a corrected version of a memo that has already been made public might still be sensitive.

Brown agreed to check the time that the alleged final draft was written, but has not followed up. A copy of the document obtained by WorldNetDaily is time-stamped "9/11/01 5:31 p.m."

The report is controversial because, up until now, there was every indication that the 19 hijackers used box cutters – a legal carry-on item at the time – and therefore did not breach airport security, which was managed by the airlines and regulated by the FAA. Guns, of course, are banned.

The official who was at the FAA Operation Center the day the report was prepared says he knows its author, and that the employee is not known to make mistakes.

"The person is extremely competent," he said, declining to reveal the author's name.

A former FAA special agent says he understands one of the authors to be Penny Anderson, an official in FAA's international operations division.

"She was involved in the writing, proofing and delivery of the report," said Steve Elson, an airport-security whistleblower who has maintained close ties to many FAA staffers since resigning from the agency in 1999. "She hand-delivered it to Garvey on the 10th floor."

Brown would not say when Garvey got a copy of the summary.

"Penny is bright and pays attention to detail," Elson said. "I'd be surprised if she'd let a mistake like that get by."

He added: "I don't think there is any second draft."

Anderson referred questions to FAA's press office. Brown declined comment when asked about Anderson's contribution to the Sept. 11 report.

If the report of a gunshot is a mistaken draft, two others things are curious – it's not labeled "draft," and it wasn't destroyed.

Brown says she can't explain it. But she maintains that there was no gun aboard Flight 11, and that the account resulted from a "miscommunication" between FAA headquarters and American Airlines dispatch centers.

What kind of "miscommunication"? She would not elaborate.

But Brown points out that, given the multiple jumbo-jet crashes and catastrophic attacks on the country that day, the information-gathering process at the operations center was unusually chaotic, leading to several errors – only one of which was the gun account.

Indeed, the same Flight 11 summary containing the gun incident said the jet crashed at 9:25 a.m, when in fact it hit the first World Trade Center tower at 8:48 a.m. In another error, United Airlines Flight 93 passenger Christian Adams' name is misspelled as "Christine."

Still, these errors are perfunctory by comparison. There's a big difference between confusing weapons and causes of death, and mixing up times and spellings of names, skeptics point out.

Sources familiar with what happened that day in FAA's emergency operations center say information was coming in at a frenetic pace. As new pieces of data arrived, they were written down on paper and posted on a "status board" for the four flights. At the end of the day, one or more staffers summarized all the information on the board in a report.

The gunshot account "was recorded factually from what was on the wall containing all the information we had at that point in time," the FAA source involved in the process said.

The shooting passage is the most specific in the report:

"The American Airlines FAA Principal Security Inspector (PSI) was notified by Suzanne Clark of American Airlines Corporate Headquarters that an on board flight attendant contacted American Airlines Operations Center and informed that a passenger located in seat 10B shot and killed a passenger in seat 9B at 9:20 a.m.

"The passenger killed was Daniel Lewin, shot by passenger Satam Al Suqami. One bullet was reported to have been fired."

Apart from the time, many of the details check out.

The passenger seating matches that of the airline's manifest. Clark in Fort Worth did contact FAA Principal Security Inspector Janet Riffe in Washington, though both deny discussing a gun.

"We do not know where that got its life in this summary written for Jane Garvey," said American Airlines spokesman John Hotard.

Also, an American flight attendant on the plane did call and report a passenger being killed by hijackers seated in rows 9 and 10 – although the passenger died of stab wounds, according to the FBI's account of what she said. And she called Logan International Airport in Boston, however, not American's system operations control center at Fort Worth. It was another American flight attendant who called Fort Worth, but she apparently did not mention a passenger being killed.

The FBI, which got the manifest from American within hours of the first crash, denies it was the FAA source for the gun story.

And officials at the bureau say they have come up with no evidence in their investigation of the hijackings to suggest any passengers were shot aboard the flights.

"There is no evidence that any shots were fired at any time on any of the flights," FBI spokesman Bill Carter told WorldNetDaily.

So how did a detailed account of a shooting on Flight 11 end up in a high-level government report?

"In any investigation, there is information that may be developed very early on that, after further scrutiny and further investigation, is determined to be no longer operative," Carter explained.

Previous stories:

Hijacker shot Flight 11 passenger: FAA memo

American Airlines denies giving gun info to FAA

Did FAA get Flight 11 gun info from FBI?

FAA covering up 9-11 gun, whistleblower agent claims

Israeli aboard Flight 11 'executed,' friends say