The one factor that might have prevented the hijackings on Septem ber 11 was the presence of air marshals on the airliners, but there were none. In 1962, the FAA initiated the Air Marshall Program to prevent airliner hijack- ings by placing marshals on “high risk” and “special circumstances” fl ights. 70
A fl urry of hijackings to Cuba in the early 1970s led the Nixon administration to expand the program to hundreds of agents. 71 The program was further
expanded by the Reagan administration in the 1980s, after the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in 1985. Despite the success of the program, the aviation in- dustry opposed it, because it was costly having to give up seats on an airliner. What made it worse was that the seat or seats reserved for air marshals were in fi rst class. The pilots’ union was also opposed to armed air marshals be- cause of a concern about possible gunfi re in an airliner. Consequently, several airline carriers petitioned the government to eliminate the program, charging that it was “ineffective and risky.” 72 The combination of opposition from the
aviation industry and the absence of hijackings led to a contraction of the Air Marshall Program in the 1990s. A decision was made in the FAA to transfer aviation security to the ground and the screening process. By 2001, there were only 32 air marshals on duty for an average of 34,000 airline fl ights daily. 73
Moreover, all of the air marshals had been assigned to international fl ights because the FAA considered these to be more risky. The failure of the Air Marshall Program and the existence of other onboard weaknesses meant that the hijackers had little trouble seizing control of the aircraft.
Despite the lack of a air marshal on any of the fl ights, the hijackers were suspicious of the occupants in the fi rst class section. They had carefully placed two team members in seats near the cockpit for rapid access to it, and the other members were seated toward the back of the fi rst class section to con- trol the passengers. On American Airlines Flight 11, the hijackers were suspi- cious that one of the passengers was a possible air marshal. This passenger was Daniel Leven, an Israeli-American and a former soldier in the Israeli Defense
How the Hijackers on September 11 Approached American Aviation Security 93 Force (IDF). As soon as the hijackers made their move on the cockpit, Levin was murdered.
CONCLUSION
The hijackers on September 11 were successful because the American aviation security system was faulty, and they had made a serious study of its weaknesses. Anybody who knew anything about aviation security knew that aviation security at American airports had systemic problems. But every at- tempt to fi x aviation security ran into insurmountable road blocks. The full weight of the aviation industry’s lobby would crash down on the reformers. The aviation lobby had friends in Congress who could block or water down any legislation. It was not much better in government. FAA administrators were more comfortable not challenging the status quo, leaving the airline carriers to do whatever they desired. In essence, the FAA was incapable of regulating the airline industry. In a highly competitive industry, the air carri- ers constantly tried to lower security costs by putting pressure on the security companies they employed. This pressure to maximize profi t at the expense of security led to one security company being in the process of applying for bankruptcy on September 11, and to others having fi nancial problems. The onerous responsibility for making aviation security work was placed on the lowest level of underpaid employees.
Even before studying the weaknesses of the American aviation industry planners in al Qaeda were confi dent that a major terrorist attack on the United States was possible. Osama bin Laden accepted Khaled Sheikh Muhammed’s plan because he wanted to strike at the United States. This desire meant that symbols of American power such as the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, U.S. Capitol, and the White House were all potential targets. Al Qaeda planners knew that if they could fi nd the right operatives it would be possible to carry out a successful terrorist operation. In al Qaeda’s training camps in Afghanistan, it was possible to fi nd intelligent, highly motivated in- dividuals willing to carry out a martyrdom mission. Once candidates were selected, it was easy for most of them to obtain American visas. In an open society like the United States, al Qaeda operatives were able to obtain the necessary pilot training and to take fl ights to study aviation security at airports and in the air. They learned that it was easy to penetrate aviation security as long as none of them challenged the system by becoming too conspicuous, or by trying to pass weapons through screening too openly. They realized that confusion over the FAA’s list of prohibited items meant that some weapons could pass screening. Their observations on the lack of onboard security showed that hijacking an aircraft would be relatively easy with the trained personnel on their team.
Now it is known what can happen in an environment with a weak aviation security system and determined hijackers, but what about the future? Almost immediately after September 11, federal agents descended on the screeners at
Logan International Airport, Dulles International Airport, and Newark International Airport. Screeners were soon blamed for allowing the hijackers through security. 74 However, nobody could cite what the screeners had done
wrong. It didn’t matter that the hijackers had been passed through security having no weapon on the prohibited list. After all, the FAA wanted the screen- ers to use common sense in passing passengers through security.
Almost immediately after September 11, the airline industry launched a lobbying campaign for a government subsidy. This campaign was success- ful in Congress, which passed legislation granting the airline industry $15 billion—$5 billion in grants and $10 billion in secured loans. Almost as important was the airlines’ request to have September 11 declared an act of war, making the airlines would not be liable for damage to persons and property on the ground. Finally, the airline industry was successful in hav- ing the U.S. government assume responsibility for aviation security.
Everyone in authority, the U.S. government, the FAA, and the airline in- dustry, evaded responsibility. The September attacks were treated as a force of nature with nobody responsible for it. Those who had made a series of bad decisions were often rewarded by promotions, and those who had warned about the possibility of terrorism in the United States were left isolated. Con- gress reacted with a series of antiterrorism legislation that included the aboli- tion of several agencies and the transfer of their responsibilities to Homeland Security.
The question remains as to whether there could be another major terror- ist incident take place in the United States. Although al Qaeda has lost its safe haven in Afghanistan, it still has the capability of launching a terrorist attack in the future. The major question is, will this attack have an aviation component? Despite the federalization of aviation security, the record indi- cates that aviation security is still a problem. Weaknesses in screening and in security checks on employees remain ongoing problems. In the past, al Qaeda planners have taken a considerable amount of time in planning for a terrorist operation. This mode of operation appears to have changed little. In Khaled Sheikh Muhammed’s testimony, at his hearing in early 2007 at the Guanta- namo Bay detention center, he confessed to have been engaged in planning a multitude of terrorist operations to be directed against American targets. He may have been less than honest about future operations in the United States. The next time, the hijackers may hijack a cargo aircraft or steal a small aircraft at a local airport and use either as a fl ying bomb. Both are variations on the September 11 theme, but they are distinct possibilities.
NOTES
1. Before September 11, Western analysts had viewed suicide attacks as not easily exportable, because such attackers required direct observation and targeting to be ef- fective. This analysis meant suicide bombers needed close handling and could be launched only close to the target. The September 11 attacks violated this type of
How the Hijackers on September 11 Approached American Aviation Security 95 analysis. Brian M. Jenkins, “The Organization Men,” in How Did This Happen? Terror- ism and the New War, ed. James F. Hoge, Jr., and Gideon Rose (New York: PublicAf- fairs, 2001), 7.
2. David Burke killed his former supervisor and the cockpit crew, causing the plane to crash. Roger Simon, “Airline Security Seems to Be Getting the Gate,” Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), December 28, 1993, 7B.
3. Kenneth C. Moore has charged that this requirement did not solve the prob- lem because in his words, “most airline employees have numerous ways to the air oper- ations area other than though the screening checkpoint.” Kenneth C. Moore, Airport, Aircraft, and Airline Security, 2nd ed. (Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1992), 51.
4. Ibid., 196.
5. David Usborne, “US Airport ‘Loath to Pay Out for Security,’ ” Independent (London), July 27, 1996, 10.
6. Laura Parker and David Ottaway, “The Weak Link in Airline Security,” Wash- ington Post, April 2, 1989, A1.
7. Quote taken from e-mail from Brian Sullivan, retired FAA special agent who worked at Boston Logan until his retirement in late 2000, to Michael Canavan, the individual in charge of all aviation security at the FAA from March 2001 to September 2001, August 16, 2001.
8. Andrew R. Thomas, Aviation Insecurity: The New Challenges of Air Travel (Am- herst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2003), 59.
9. Massport was responsible for security at Logan International Airport. Thomas, Aviation Insecurity, 63.
10. Sean P. Murphy, “FAA Put Security Testing on Hold Agency Backed Airline Opposition,” Boston Globe, December 9, 2001, B1.
11. Ibid.
12. Gregg Easterbrook, “The All-Too-Friendly Skies: Security as an After- thought,” in How Did This Happen? Terrorism and the New War, ed. James F. Hoge, Jr., and Gideon Rose (New York: PublicAffairs, 2001), 163.
13. Ariel Merari, “Attacks on Civil Aviation: Trends and Lessons,” in Aviation Ter- rorism and Security, ed. Paul Wilkerson and Brian M. Jenkins (London: Frank Cass, 1999), 23.
14. Brian M. Jenkins, “Aircraft Sabotage” in Aviation Terrorism and Security, ed. Paul Wilkinson, and Brian M. Jenkins, Aviation Terrorism and Security (London: Frank Cass, 1999), 50.
15. Of the 50 recommendations from the Gore Commission almost nonewere fully implemented. Thomas, Aviation Insecurity, 52.
16. Brian M. Jenkins, “Aviation Security in the United States,” in Aviation Ter- rorism and Security, ed. Paul Wilkinson, and Brian M. Jenkins (London: Frank Cass, 1999), 110–11.
17. InVision Technologies had received $8 million of its $20 million in develop- ment funds from the FAA. Charles Boisseau, “Improvements Needed to Combat Air- line Safety Threat,” Houston Chronicle, August 4, 1996, 2.
18. Boisseau, “Improvements Needed to Combat Airline Safety Threat,” 2. 19. Usborne, “US Airports ‘Loath to Pay Out for Security,’ ” 10.
20. Boisseau, “Improvements Needed to Combat Airline Safety Threat,” 2. 21. Moore, Airport, Aircraft, and Airline Security, 183.
22. Irvin Molotsky, “20% of Mock Weapons Slip by in Test of Security at Air- ports,” New York Times, June 18, 1987, A1.
23. Quoted from a letter from Brian F. Sullivan to Senator John Kerry on May 7, 2001.
24. Merari, “Attacks on Civil Aviation: Trends and Lessons,” 24.
25. Osama bin Laden knew of both Ramzi Youself and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, but only by reputation. Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Knopf, 2006), 235.
26. Terry McDermott, Perfect Soldiers: The Hijackers: Who They Were, Why They Did It (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 77.
27. Wright, The Looming Tower, 307 8.
28. Jack Aubry, “Eiffel Tower Targets for Similar Attack in 1994,” Ottawa Citizen Canada, September 14, 2001, C5.
29. Yemenis had diffi culty obtaining U.S. visas because the Immigration and Natu- ralization Service (INS) was wary allowing them to come to the United States, not be- cause of potential terrorism but because of economic reasons. They were though to be a burden on the American economy, coming from such a poor country. McDermott, Perfect Soldiers, 178.
30. Wright, The Looming Tower, 308.
31. The Khalden Training Camp was the initial stop for al Qaeda recruits under- going training. After they went through boot camp, the recruits were then selected for specialized training at a number of other al Qaeda camps. In the late 1990s, there were about 50 camps in which al Qaeda recruits were trained, most of them quite small. McDermott, Perfect Soldiers, 172–73.
32. McDermott, Perfect Soldiers, 173.
33. German authorities claim that the members of the Hamburg cell were already discussing the idea of using an aircraft for terrorist purposes before traveling to Afghan- istan. Jason Burke, Al-Qaeda: Casting A Shadow of Terror (London: Tauris, 2003), 219.
34. Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, 9/11 and Terrorist Travel (Franklin, TN: Hillsboro Press, 2004), 5.
35. Testimony of Harry Samit, FBI agent at the FBI’s Minneapolis Field Offi ce, at the Zacarias Moussaoui Trial on March 9, 2006. Evidence from the trial indicates that Moussaoui was part of a future terrorist plot, because he wanted training at the Pan Am School to pilot a Boeing 747–400 rather than the smaller Boeing 757s and Boeing 767s that the September 11 conspirators trained on.
36. Thomas, Aviation Insecurity, 14. 37. McDermott, Perfect Soldiers, 220.
38. In June 2001, the U.S. government instituted the Visa Express Program in Saudi Arabia to reduce the consular workload and reduce the size of crowds outside the U.S. Consulate. This program meant that it was easy for Saudi citizens to obtain visas. StaffReport, 9/11 and Terrorist Travel, 32.
39. John Miller, Michael Stone, and Chris Mitchell, The Cell: Inside the 9/11 Plot, and Why the FBI and CIA Failed to Stop It (New York: Hyperion, 2002), 296.
40. Ibid., 294–95. 41. Ibid., 298.
42. Burke, Al-Qaeda, 225.
43. McDermott, Perfect Soldiers, 224.
44. Staff of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, “The Aviation Security System and the 9/11 Attacks” Staff Statement No. 3, 2.
45. Susan B. Trento and Joseph J. Trento, Unsafe at Any Altitude: Exposing the Illu- sion of Aviation Security, rev. ed. (Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press, 2007), 19.
How the Hijackers on September 11 Approached American Aviation Security 97 46. Ibid., 12.
47. Editorial Staff, “Air Cargo Remains a Glaring Weakness,” San Antonio Express- News (Texas), January 24, 2004, 10B.
48. Thomas, Aviation Insecurity, 190.
49. Many of these fi rms had offered low bids so as to be able to compete for more lucrative contracts. Michael Moss and Leslie Eaton, “Aviation Firms Ever Mindful to Cut Costs,” New York Times, November 15, 2001, B1.
50. Argenbright Security ran into legal problems when it tried to forbid female employees from wearing traditional Muslim head coverings. They had to reinstate the fi red employees and issue an apology along with back pay. Trento and Trento, Unsafe at Any Altitude, 15–16.
51. Trento and Trento, Unsafe at Any Altitude, 17.
52. Moss and Eaton, “Aviation Firms Ever Mindful to Cut Costs,” B1. The events of September 11 delayed the process, but ITS did declare bankruptcy on September 13.
53. Moore, Airport, Aircraft, and Airline Security, 121–22. 54. Ibid., 128.
55. Ibid., 129.
56. Jim Gallagher, “Tighter Security Still has Leaks, Experts Say,” St. Louis Post- Dispatch, July 28, 1996, 9A.
57. Jean Heller, “Report Faults Airport Security,” St. Petersburg Times (Florida), August 1, 2000, 3B.
58. James F. Sweeney, “Airport Screeners Get the Lowest Pay,” Plain Dealer, April 10, 2000, 1B.
59. Moore, Airport, Aircraft, and Airline Security, 95.
60. Jean Heller, “Critics See Weak Link in Airport Security,” St. Petersburg Times, February 14, 2000, 1B.
61. Staff, “The Aviation System and 9/11 Attacks,” 8. 62. Ibid.
63. Betty Ong reported the use of chemical mace or its equivalent on American Airlines Flight 11. Phillip Shenon, “A Calm Voice as Disaster Unfolded in the Sky,” New York Times, January 28, 2004, A22.
64. Thomas, Aviation Insecurity, 48.
65. Trento and Trento, Unsafe at Any Altitude, 19.
66. This was FAA Order Number 8400.10, issued on January 7, 1997. Thomas, Aviation Insecurity, 33.
67. Thomas, Aviation Insecurity, 33.
68. Shenon, “A Calm Voice as Disaster Unfolded in the Sky,” A22.
69. Thomas reported that there had been some 30 cases of passengers attempting to crash through the cockpit doors in the twenty-four months prior to September 11, 2001. These cases had been classifi ed as due to air rage. Thomas, Aviation Insecurity, 34–37.
70. Philip J. LaVelle, “Federal Agents Now Flying on U.S. Airliners,” San Diego Union-Tribune, September 27, 2001, A1.
71. Ibid.
72. Moore, Airport, Aircraft and Airline Security, 9.
73. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta announced this fi gure on October 26, 2001. Bill Adair, “U.S. Had Only 32 Air Marshals Sept. 11,” St. Petersburg Times, October 27, 2001, 6A.