Did The Passengers of Flight 11 Board The Wrong Plane?

An Independent Investigation

When did the passengers of Flight 11 embark on the plane? After 23 years, this seemingly easy question is still lacking an answer. The 9/11 Commission Report doesn't deliver one, instead it confronts us with surprising boarding data:

The 9/11 Commission states:

See TSA report, "Selectee Status of September 11th Hijackers," undated. For boarding and seating information, see AAL record, SABRE information on Flight 11, Sept. 11, 2001. These boarding times from the American Airlines 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. (9/11 Commission Report, note #9 of Chapter 1).

It is, of course, impossible that any passengers boarded Flight 11 after it had moved off the gate. The concise explanation of the 9/11 Commission; the boarding times are "approximate only". This sounds like as if the actual boarding times were spaciously rounded up by American Airlines' SABRE system which records and processes the boarding data.

Example: Given that Flight 11 pushed back at 7:40 a.m. (according to the 9/11 Commission, although this is not 100% correct because at 7:40 a.m., Flight 11's doors were closed. The actual push-back was executed at 7:45 a.m., as documented by the radio transcript between Boston Tower and Flight 11. However, this inaccuracy doesn't matter for the subject). Now the 9/11 Commission claims: if a passenger passed the gate at 7:37 a.m. (before the push-back), the system logged his boarding time as 7:50 a.m. (or 8:00 a.m. or whatever time after the push-back). The sizeable time gap is incorrect, which shows that the 9/11 Commission's explanation for the oddity is far from conclusive, indeed it does not withstand closer analysis.

The cited note indicates that the 9/11 Commission sent a request to American Airlines on February 3, 2004, which was answered on March 15, 2004. In 2009, this response was released to the public. See below:

American previously has provided the Commission with documents that indicate the approximate times that passengers boarded AA Flights 11 and 77 and the approximate check-in times at the main ticket counters at the respective airports. These documents are Kean Commission Bates numbers 004658-004675 (Flight 77) and 004483-004518 (Flight 11) and are from American's Electronic Gate Reader ("EGR") records. The EGR records do not provide the exact time of individual passenger check-in, the check-in location (ticket counter vs. departure gate), or the identification of the check-in agent.

The EGR system for a particular flight is manually initiated by the gate agent usually several hours prior to boarding. The initiation of the EGR system is done at the discretion of the gate agent. At initiation, the system downloads information for the flight, such as the names of all passengers holding reservations, check in status, seat assignment (if pre-reserved), booking class, and destination city.

Following system initiation, the EGR system "polls" the Sabre passenger reservation system for any updates to this data. Prior to the start of boarding, the updates occur at approximately 15-minute intervals and provide a "snapshot" of any changes in information since the last update. For this reason, the ticket counter check-in times from the EGR system reflect only "approximate" times. During actual boarding of the flights, the "polling" process occurs more frequently, at approximately 15-second intervals. The EGR records the time that a passenger's boarding pass goes through the EGR and, provides an accurate record of when the passenger boards the aircraft.

http://www.911myths.com/index.php/Image:Team7_Box18_AAL-QFR-Responses.pdf

So the boarding times are recorded fairly accurate, with an uncertainty of +-15 seconds. In our example: if a passenger passed the gate at 7:37:48, the system might round up the time to 7:37:50 or 7:38:00, but certainly not a time after 7:40 (the push-back). While the system checks the passenger's reservation status every 15 minutes only, it doesn't create minute-long gaps between actual and recorded boarding time.

The 9/11 Commissioners ignored this difference. Why does their report insinuate that the inaccurate boarding times are inherent in the SABRE system if American Airlines declares in plain language that the system "provides an accurate record of when the passenger boards the aircraft"? Either the gentlemen did not read American Airline's answer correctly, or did not understand it, or they decided to cease further inquiries and try to get away with a presenting the explanation of "approximate only". It indicates that the latter is the case, when you read the internal working draft from May 2004. See below:

At 7:31 a.m. Wail Al-Shehri and Waleed Al-Shehri boarded American Flight #11. At 7:39 a.m. Atta and al Omari embarked on the aircraft and al Suqami boarded at 7:40 a.m. (PLACEHOLDER: THESE TIMES, WHICH ARE PULLED FROM AA'S SABRE RESPONSE SYSTEM, NEED FURTHER VERIFICATION BECAUSE THAT REPORT HAS SOME OTHER PASSENGERS "BOARDING" AFTER THE FLIGHT HAD PUSHED BACK).

http://www.scribd.com/doc/15121435/FO-B4-Commission-Meeting-33004-Fdr-Tab-C-32504-Working-Draft-Narrative-2-The-Terrorist-Hijackings-of-September-11-166

The need for further inquiry expressed in this paper is not reflected in the 9/11 Commission report at all, which was released three months later. The (too) late boarding is confirmed by two passengers of Flight 11 (Alexander Filipov and Richard Ross), as well as flight attendant Madeleine Amy Sweeney. They contacted their spouse via phone from the airport to tell her/him that the flight was delayed. Furthermore, there are conflicting reports of which gate Flight 11 started from. Apparently the passengers boarded on a plane at Gate 26, not at Gate 32 as claimed by the 9/11 Commission. I shall be writing covering more about the gate discrepancies in the future. What this space!

Thanks for reading & caring.