on the morning of September 11. However,Atta reacted negatively when informed in Portland that he would have
to check in again in Boston. Michael Touhey interview (May 27, 2004).Whatever their reason, the Portland Jet-
port was the nearest airport to Boston with a 9/11 flight that would have arrived at Logan in time for the passen-
gers to transfer to American Airlines Flight 11, which had a scheduled departure time of 7:45
largest facilities liable to highest threat, and generally subject to greater security requirements. See FAA report,"Civil
Aviation Security Reference Handbook," May 1999, pp. 117118.Though Logan was selected for two of the hijack-
ings (as were both American and United Airlines), we found no evidence that the terrorists targeted particular air-
ports or airlines. Nothing stands out about any of them with respect to the only security layer that was relevant to
the actual hijackings: checkpoint screening. See FAA briefing materials, "Assessment and Testing Data for BOS,
EWR, and IAD," Oct. 24, 2001. Despite security problems at Logan (see, e.g., two local Fox 25 television inves-
tigative reports in February and April 2001, and an email in August 2001 from a former FAA special agent to the
agency's leadership regarding his concerns about lax security at the airport), no evidence suggests that such issues
entered into the terrorists' targeting: they simply booked heavily fueled east-to-west transcontinental flights of the
large Boeing aircraft they trained to fly that were scheduled to take off at nearly the same time. See Matt Carroll,
"Fighting Terror Sense of Alarm; Airlines Foiled Police Logan Probe," Boston Globe, Oct. 17, 2001, p. B1.
tional security scrutiny. Ten out of the 19 hijackers (including 9 out of 10 on the two American Airlines flights)
were identified via the CAPPS system.According to the procedures in place on 9/11, in addition to those flagged
by the CAPPS algorithm, American's ticket agents were to mark as "selectees" those passengers who did not pro-
vide correct responses to the required security questions, failed to show proper identification, or met other crite-
ria. See FAA report,"Air Carrier Standard Security Program," May 2001, pp. 7576; FAA record of interview, Donna
Thompson, Sept. 23, 2001; Chuck Severance interview (Apr. 15, 2004); Jim Dillon interview (Apr. 15, 2004); Diane
Graney interview (Apr. 16, 2004). It appears that Atta was selected at random. See Al Hickson briefing (June 8,
2004).
(Aug. 15, 2003); see also FBI response to Commission briefing request no. 6, undated (topic 11).
in (suggesting they were Banihammad and Shehri). However, she also recalled that the men had the same last name
and had assigned seats on row 9 (i.e., the Ghamdis), and that account has been adopted here. In either case, she
almost certainly was dealing with one set of the Flight 175 hijackers. See FBI reports of investigation, interviews
of Gail Jawahir, Sept. 21, 2001; Sept. 28, 2001. Even had the hijackers been unable to understand and answer the
two standard security questions, the only consequence would have been the screening of their carry-on and checked
bags for explosives. See FAA report,"Air Carrier Standard Security Program," May 2001, p. 76.
points, in aggregate, screeners met or exceeded the average for overall, physical search, and X-ray detection, while
falling below the norm for metal detection. No FAA Special Assessments (by "red teams") were done at Logan
security checkpoints during the two years prior to September 11, 2001. See FAA briefing materials, "Assessment
and Testing Data for BOS, EWR, and IAD," Oct. 24, 2001.
dia Richey, Sept. 15, 2001; interview of Rosarito Rivera, Sept. 25, 2001.
system are approximate only; for Flight 11, they indicated that some passengers "boarded" after the aircraft had
pushed back from the gate. See AAL response to the Commission's February 3, 2004, requests, Mar. 15, 2004.