FAA says it had 11 other suspect planes on Sept. 11

wcbs880.com ^

[honway]

Consider the implications if a connection could be established between Odtllah's Florida address and the hijackers in Florida.

When Odtllah was extradited from Florida, there had to be a record.

The reason I think this may be important is because I do not believe Katherine Smith was burned alive for her involvement in past terrorist events. I believe she may have been murdered for her role in providing fake driver's licenses for the terrorists involved in the next major attack.

[honway]

Let me try to summarize what we know.

1.Odtllah fleas a sodomy charge in Utah and is later extradited from Florida in 1997.

2.Some of the 9-11 hijackers lived in Florida.

3.Even though Odtllah was living in Memphis, the day the hijackers struck the WTC, Odtllah drove from New York to Memphis.(unlikely coincidence,IMO.)

4.Odtllah is arrested for his role in providing fake driver's licenses to two unlicensed plumbers working on the sprinkler system in one of the Towers days before 9-11.

[Fred Mertz]

Super research honway, as usual. I'll check back tomorrow for further discussion.

Self-reference bump.

[honway]

Thanks Fred.

http://www.sltrib.com/2002/feb/02172002/nation_w/177789.htm

Link

According to records, Odtllah's last address before he was arrested was The Grove, a gated community in the Memphis suburb of Cordova, with swimming pools, tennis courts and spas. Police say Odtllah came to the United States about 13 years ago and had been in Tennessee for about 2 1/2 years.

Smith later told officials she met Odtllah at his gas station. He sold her the Acura, which was still in Odtllah's name when Smith died.

When Smith was arrested, authorities say she admitted helping Odtllah obtain licenses for "cousins" on a half-dozen occasions in the past year. An FBI agent later testified that Odtllah was charging up to $1,200 each to help people get their new identities

[honway]

WALEED AL SHEHRI
Age: 25

Role: Waleed and Wail Al Shehri sat in seats 2A and 2B of American Airlines Flight 11.

Pilot license: Yes.

Florida connection: Obtained Florida driver's license in October 1994. Lived in Daytona Beach through 1998 and later moved to Vienna, Va. Al Shehri graduated from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in 1997 with a bachelor's degree in aeronautical science, the university's commercial pilot training degree, and is listed as having a commercial pilot's license.

Place of birth: Pilot's license lists home as Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

ABDULRAHMAN AL OMARI
Age: 38

Role: Aboard American Airlines Flight 11.

Pilot: Yes.

Florida connection: Issued a Florida driver's license on May 27, 1994. Lived in Vero Beach neighborhood near two other men, Adnan Bukhari and Amer M. Kamfar, who are linked to investigation. All three took flying instruction together at Flight Safety International. Once listed a home address at the Flight Operations center at New York's Kennedy Airport and told his Florida landlord he was a Saudi Arabian Airlines pilot.

International connection: Pilot's license lists address as the airline's post office box in Saudi Arabia.

International background: Listed address in United Arab Emirates.

United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing 767-200

MARWAN AL SHEHHI

Age: 23

Role: Aboard the second plane into the World Trade Center. He is believed to be Atta's cousin. Returned Atta's rental car Sunday at a rental car company in Pompano Beach.

Pilot's license: Yes.

Florida connection: Obtained a Florida driver's license in February 1997. Took flight training with Atta and lived with Atta in Venice last year. Moved to Coral Springs this year.

International background: Studied electrical engineering for one year at the Technical University in Hamburg and connected to Islamic extremists. He and Atta lived together in Venice, Fla., and in Hamburg. He was in the United States on a business visa.

. AHMED ALI AL GHAMDI

Age: 21

Role: Aboard the flight.

Florida connection: Has a Florida identification card. Lived in Palm Bay in 1998, records say. Also lived in Vienna, Va., and may have lived in Delray Beach.

[honway]

Khaled Odtllah (right) and Sandra DaSilva head to a parking garage Thursday after Odtllah's release from custody.

[Tymesup]

"I think the box cutters were a dead giveaway, after all they were used on all of the hijackings."

There was a thread a while back that there may have been a gun on one of the flights. A draft memo was prepared that day to that effect; the final version did not have that detail. The guy who was shot was an MIT grad with an Israeli background, named Levin if I remember correctly.

[Tymesup]

We had at least one voluminous thread about scrambling jets that morning. rdavis84 started the thread, if I remember correctly.

[Tymesup]

"You are right. There is alot about this I don't know. The one thing I know for certain is that if Denko Mechanical was working on a legitimate job in the World Trade Center, there should be some record, some address or phone listing,or a shop or business office to confirm that there actually is a Denko Mechanical, other than what is on the previous reply. How many businesses have no listing in a phone book? Isn't that bad for business?
"

Sergei and Denko Mechanical were at E26 St from 2/8/2000 to 9/2001, plenty of time to get listed in the phone book.

[Tymesup]

"Let me try to summarize what we know."

5. The plumbers work on the sprinklers in the WTC garage on 9/5 and 9/6, less than a week before 9/11.

[smorgle]

Hey, thanks. I'll look it up.

[smorgle]

Sorry, I didn't spot your post earlier.

Depends... What time did the FAA realize that Flights 77 and 93 were hijacked? I would say that would be a determining factor.

Checked lots of press stories and timelines - found nothing definitive on these two flights. However, when the FAA realized these flights were hijacked isn't really the determining factor since highjacking is not a necessary condition for an intercept.

Interception is indicated when a plane a) loses communications and/or b) goes off the flight path it's required to file before take-off, because it keeps a plane in trouble--for whatever reason--from straying into the flight paths of other aircraft.

AA #77 lost radio contact at 8:50 and lost the transponder at 8:56. Shortly thereafter it left the flight path. UA #93 lost communications at approx. 9:20 and there were two quick radio transmissions from the hijackers at 9:22, so sometime soon after 9:22 the plane left the flight path.

AA #77 hit the Pentagon at 9:45, about 49 min. after losing communications. UA #93 crashed at 10:10, about 50 min. after losing communications.

Data is taken from your posts on the "Gutsy Cabin Crew" thread.

[Prodigal Son]

Couple of questions:

How many planes did the FAA suspect of being hijacked at that point?

Do the regulations require an intercept? Or do they simply state that the Air Traffic Controller notify his FAA supervisor immediately? Some of the wording for the FAA regs you gave me is very ambiguous about this procedure. It seems to be a lengthy time consuming one and all I could find in the end was a passage that stated "If an escort is ordered..."

On 9/11, would fighter planes have been able to shoot down Flight 77 without authorization from the President or Vice President? In other words, even if they had been scrambled in time, caught up with this flight- would they have been able to do anything about it?

I think it is quite clear from this article and others and the regs you posted to me on the other thread that the system, as it existed on 9/11, was actually quite slow and ponderous and geared more towards a typical hijacking. The FAA state in several articles since then that the system has been improved (implying, obviously that the system wasn't fast enough on 9/11) so that the FAA and NORAD can communicate with each other instantaneously now.

Also, if you refer to the article about the Korean Airliner that was almost shot down over Alaska- the pilot of the flight had issued a "hijack code" on his transponder for 90 minutes. NORAD wanted to shoot him down. FAA kept arguing against it. Later, NORAD denied wanting to shoot the plane down because they knew that they would have been overstepping their authority- it wasn't allowed for them to take such a step without the proper approval. If you remember, President Bush was in Florida in a school classroom at the time (when the planes collided with the WTC)- I sincerely doubt he would've ordered a shootdown without a lot more info and by the time he would've gotten the info, it still would've been too late.

What I'm getting at is, the system you believe existed on 9/11- did not, in fact, exist. I'm sure there are a lot of people in the FAA who have sat back and second guessed their actions since 9/11. But always keep in mind, there wasn't a big "deception" going on in the FAA Command Building. Big, unprecedented decisions were being made at a very high rate of speed, a lot of heavy sh!t was happening, they were trying to do something that had never been done before (land the entire fleet) and they had up to a dozen planes that could've been hijacked. In particular, in the 0930 to 0935 time frame, they had a plane that had been ordered to land in Pittsburgh that refused to do so and wanted to continue to Washington DC and they also had a plane that dissappeared from radar over W. Virginia and three incoming flights over the Atlantic were sending out distress signals. Flight 77 was just one of many flights they were worried about. There were a lot of people involved at the FAA in all this- a lot of witnesses that actually saw and pariticipated in the decision making process that morning. It is not rational to conclude that so many participants were all in collusion to drag their feet in order to allow the attacks to happen or for any other reason.

Flight 93, if you remember, was the source of some confusion for the FAA. They originally thought it was Flight 1989 that was hijacked. But all that is beside the point. They did have fighters in the air at that point that would've shot the plane if need be, so that particular base was covered. There were fighters defending DC airspace at that point and fighters defending NYC airspace. According to NORAD, there were fighters on their way to intercept Flight 93. It never would have made it to DC or NYC. They got the job done on that one.

But the bottom line is still and will always be- the people who bear 100% responsibility for the crimes on 9/11 were the terrorists themselves. Defenses can always be breeched and defenses can always be improved. There is no perfect defense, there is no perfect system. I pointed at the system that allowed the two planes to collide over Germany. That was basically an idiot proof system. The Crash Avoidance System when it detects an imminent collision orders one plane to climb and the other plane to descend- how do you screw that up? Well, human error is how and that's exactly what happened. A very simple, very proven system failed because of human error. It happens...