USA TODAY International Edition
7 things you probably forgot about 9/ 11
1 WE STILL DON’T KNOW HOW THE HIJACKERS GOT INTO THE COCKPIT OF SOME OF THE PLANES The comprehensive report of the commission created to investigate the attacks, published in 2004, said no one could determine how the hijackers were able to get into the cockpits of the four commercial airliners they hijacked.
A flight attendant on American Flight 11 “speculated that they had ‘ jammed their way’ in,” The 9/ 11 Commission Report said. “Perhaps the terrorists stabbed the flight attendants to get a cockpit key, to force one of them to open the cockpit door, or to lure the captain or first officer out of the cockpit.”
Once the hijackers gained control of American 11, they guided it toward New York’s World Trade Center towers, where it struck the north tower at 8: 46 a. m. All 81 on board, including the five hijackers and nine crew members, died in the crash.
2 LIGHT PASSENGER LOADS MADE IT EASIER FOR THE HIJACKERS TO MANEUVER American 11, bound from Boston to Los Angeles, had 81 passengers on board out of a possible 158, according to the 9/ 11 report and aircraft data. United 175, which also left Boston for Los Angeles, had 56 pas- sengers out of a possible 168. That was a “load factor” of 33%, considerably lower than the 49% average for that flight, a federal investigation showed.
American 77, headed to Los Angeles from Washington, which struck the Pentagon, had 58 passengers out of a capacity of 176, the 9/ 11 report and other reports said. United 93, bound from Newark, N. J., to San Francisco, had only 37 passengers for a 20% load factor, far below the normal 52%.
3 MISSING HIJACKER MADE IT EASIER FOR UNITED 93 PASSENGERS TO FIGHT BACK The only one of the four hijacked flights that did not strike its intended target also had four hijackers instead of five.
“The operative likely intended to round out the team for this flight, Mohamed al Kahtani, had been refused entry by a suspicious immigration inspector at Florida’s Orlando International Airport in August,” the 9/ 11 report said.
As the passengers were just seconds away from getting into the cockpit, the hijacker at the controls crashed the plane in an empty field near Shanksville, Pa., just 20 minutes flying time from Washington.
4 THE WORLD TRADE CENTER HAD BEEN TARGETED BEFORE New York’s World Trade Center held an iconic status for terrorists even before 9/ 11. Shortly after noon on Feb. 26, 1993, a bomb planted in a van parked in the center’s underground parking garage exploded, killing six people and wounding more than 1,000, the 9/ 11 report said.
“The bombing signaled a new terrorist challenge, one whose rage and malice had no limit,” the 9/ 11 report said. “Ramzi Yousef, the Sunni extremist who planted the bomb, said later that he had hoped to kill 250,000 people.”
5 VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY ORDERED UNITED 93 TO BE SHOT DOWN Before the passengers forced the crash of United 93, Vice President Dick Cheney gave the approval for the plane to be shot down before it could reach Washington, the 9/ 11 report said.
“The Vice President authorized fighter aircraft to engage the aircraft,” the report said.
However, the report added, the Air Force fighters that were airborne at the time probably would not have found and reached United 93 in time.
Military “officials have maintained consistently that had the passengers not caused United 93 to crash, the military would have prevented it from reaching Washington, D. C.,” the 9/ 11 report said. “That conclusion is based on a version of events that we now know is incorrect.”
6 THE U. S. WAS WORKING ON MULTIPLE ATTEMPTS TO KILL OSAMA BIN LADEN BEFORE 9/ 11 The CIA and other agencies developed a plan to capture bin Laden in early 1998, the report said. That was delayed and then revived but hampered by concerns from military officials about relying on Afghan tribal leaders. Then- national security adviser Sandy Berger was concerned about what would be done with bin Laden if he was captured and whether the evidence against him could lead to a criminal conviction.
After the U. S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed on Oct. 8, 1998, President Bill Clinton authorized cruise missile strikes against bin Laden’s compound in Afghanistan. Bin Laden survived but was later killed by Navy SEALs in May 2011.
7 THE CIA WARNED PRESIDENT CLINTON ABOUT HIJACKINGS IN 1998 In the Dec. 4, 1998, daily briefing to the president from the CIA, the agency announced “Bin Ladin Preparing to Hijack US Aircraft and Other Attacks.” The plan, the agency said, was to hijack the planes to gain the release of Yousef and other terrorists, the 9/ 11 report said. But the agency had no firm information, and the hijackings did not take place. Throughout December 1998, U. S. officials tracked bin Laden around the region and tried to develop a plan to attack him with cruise missiles.