[Kermit]

I'm not a fan of Edward Jay Epstein, but if he's correct here, I for one have been taken in. And I don't like being had. I thought there was good reporting on what the hijackers used for weapons. We do know they killed stewardesses, pilots and maybe others to intimidate the passengers.

Anyone have any other info?

[alisasny]

People from both the Pentagon and Penn planes that made calls stated what the hijackers had.

I find it silly to assume that the WTC used their bare hands when on both the other planes items were used such as box cutters and knifes.

Just because those hijacked on the 2 WTC planes didn't get a chance to call others and report what was going on does not mean no weapons were used. ALso the victims on both WTC planes really had no idea what was going on. It all happened so quick.

I do find it hard to believe that a gun was aboard either WTC plane as well.

[Huck]

Wasn't there a stewardess on the plane that hit the north tower who was on the phone right up until the plane made impact? Maybe she said boxcutters. The guy does raise an interesting question.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Because, "IF" the hijackers had used guns, the 2nd Amendment would have been cancelled by now.

The stewardess had her throat cut ... and was vividly described by witnesses .... Why do you doubt what the Bush adminstration said in this case?

Or, asking the other side of that question, why would you ever consider what a democrat was saying would be accurate and worth thinking about?

[BUSHdude2000]

From what I remember of the reports on September 11th, one of the flight attendants was able to call someone from the back of the plane. She was able to give the seat numbers of the hijackers, which is how we found out who they were. I thought at the same time she said they used boxcutters and knives to slit throats and take over the planes.

[Marianne]

There is one thing that continues to perplex me. Numerous phone calls were made by the passengers to relatives, etc. stating what was occurring.
However, as far as I know, none of them gave a physical description of the hijackers. The photographs of the hijackers certainly made it clear that they weren't "blue-eyed" blondes". Apparently none of the passengers or the stewardess thought that little detail was important.
Just curious.

[concerned about politics]

There is zero evidence of box-cutters on either plane that hit the World Trade Center.

Uh...DUH! People were calling family members with their cell phones.
Can't the liberals come up with something smarter than this? How far down into the gutters are they going to dig for new "suggestions" of dirt?
These people are going over the edge. They're losing their sanity, really. Hello? Reality check!

it protects the Bush Administration by diverting attention away from concern that airport security at three Federally-supervised airports was dangerously lax.

He should have personally frisked each passenger since his first day in the Whitehouse! But make sure there's no checks on anyone but Christian white men, otherwise it's racial profiling. Sorry , it's the law.

[JmyBryan]

Not denying they said it, but I don't remember "plastic" knives being mentioned. When I've flown first class, I've received actual silverware.

[Cicero]

It's a good question. I'd be curious to hear more.

As I recall, one or two additional planes that were not hijacked that day were found on the ground with box cutters or knives taped onto the trays, with the trays raised, so the weapons were hidden between the trays and the seat backs. It was also said that some of the hijackers' associates worked for airport food service companies at Logan International in Boston, and therefore possibly also at the other airport in New Jersey. At the time, I thought it likely that some of these food service people might have taped weapons in similar fashion on the trays in the four hijacked airliners, in the seats where the terrorists knew from their reservations that they would be seated. That way, they wouldn't need to bring the weapons through inspection at all.

We have not really seen any of these details followed up on or made public. There could be security reasons for this silence, but I don't see what those reasons can possibly be, and I have very little confidence in the reliability of the FBI or of the people who are running airport security. For that matter, I have very little confidence in "investigative reporters," who are pretty much a mythical breed these days. Most reporters these days are like a bunch of like-minded lemmings, who to sit around the office or attend chic parties, waiting for Democrat politicians and government sources to tell them what they should print.

[concerned about politics]

Why has no one questioned the numerous attacks on Americans all through the Clinton administration? What did he know then, and when?
All those attacks, and Clintons open boarder free INS passes led up to 9/11.
The message of this highjaked airline and a terrorist attack goes back to 1995. Where was the Clinton CIA and FBI to stop it?
Clinton had 5 years, Bush had Florida recounts!
Clinton let Bin Ladin go, even though Americans had been attacked so many times before.
Shouldn't we be focusing on why Clinton let the WTC mastermine fulfill his 1995 plans? Bin Ladin fled to Afganistan in 1996! Where the heck was Clinton for 8 years? Hanging out with Monica?

[Nick Danger]

This search for somebody on our side to blame pisses me off. These people make it sound like being searched and stripped is just a normal part of getting on an airplane, and if somebody didn't do it right that day, it's their fault that a gang of suicidal madmen from Islamic Hell were able to pull off a plan they'd been working on for five years.

That whole line of reasoning is so much crap. Since when should ordinary human beings have to anticipate every possible act that a fanatical madman might come up with, and submit to whatever measures might be necessary to eliminate the threat? That way lies a police state, and worse.

Prudent measures to deter the occasional nutcase I can see, but the measures required to stop dedicated madmen funded by an even crazier millionaire fanatic are beyond what people should have to deal with on a daily basis. The better, and far cheaper alternative, is to hunt down and kill the millionaire fanatic and as many of his followers as can be found. On that, we're off to a good start. As for putting cyanide detectors in every kitchen, and metal detectors in every grocery store, and all the 10,000 other things we'd have to do to really protect ourselves from an infinite supply of evil crazy people... screw it. The far better path to safety is find the crazies where they live and kill them before they act. Every dollar spent on another explosives-detection machine is a dollar that could have gone to hunting these bastards down and killing them.

[Terriergal]

Didn't the people who called out on their cell phones give this information about the weapons the subhumans had?

[vannrox]

Sorry. This is a bunch of uninformed nonsense. There is overwhelming evidence of the box cutters. Not only from the instructions in the letters that they left behind, and their computers. But also to the taped box cutters under the seats of other flights that were aborted. Let us not forget the wal-mart video on the night prior to the attack where they bought box cutters.


Geeze. Research before you write such blather.

[gilor]

Any body ever think of one of these?

CIA Letter Opener

[Scott McCollum]

What is the evidence that Europeans used smallpox infected blankets to purposely kill Native Americans?

I hear that all the time from leftist historians who want to discredit Western Civilization, but do these historians have signed orders from Queen Isabella saying to dump smallpox blankets off on the Indians? Are there records from the Catholic Church about this conspiracy? Is it conjecture made a half millennium after the fact because a bunch of Indians died from a disease with smallpox-like symptoms? What?

Cell phone calls made to authorities from the hijacked flights talk about the Arab terrorists cutting the throat of a stewardess. Maybe it wasn't a "boxcutter" but the terrorist probably used a knife. I doubt the terrorist sliced that woman's throat with a copy of Eminem's new CD, kids.

[archy]

Anyone have any other info?

Uh-huh. Follows:

By Paul Sperry
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON – FBI investigators found a stout "fighting" knife among the wreckage at the United Airlines Flight 93 crash site in western Pennsylvania, says a federal official who reviewed photographs of evidence at FBI headquarters here.

It's no secret that Islamic terrorists carried knives on board Flight 93 and the three other planes they hijacked on Sept. 11, but they were widely thought to be box cutters and possibly other short-bladed knives.

Any knife with a blade less than four inches, including box cutters, was allowed on planes under Federal Aviation Administration rules before the attacks.

"One of the knives found at the crash site in Pennsylvania was one of those belt-clip, serrated, locking-blade knives," the official said. "Its design is purely and simply a fighting knife."

He added: "Knives such as these should not have been allowed through (airport) checkpoints," assuming the knife was not stowed in checked baggage.

Flight 93 took off from Newark, N.J.

The official, a specialist in aviation security, says he saw a large photograph of the so-called fighting knife, broken in "two or three pieces," hanging on the wall, along with other photos of evidence collected from crash sites that day, at the FBI's Strategic Information and Operations Center. SIOC [SY-OCK], as it's called, is where the FBI stages major crime investigations.

Hijacking ringleader Mohammed Atta bought two knives before the attacks – one on June 25, 2001, in Dubai, U.A.E., and another on July 8, 2001, in Zurich, Switzerland, according to the Justice Department's indictment of suspected "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui.

The FBI declined to comment on the Flight 93 knife.

"That would be considered evidence in an active investigation, so we can't comment," said FBI spokesman Paul Bresson.

---

Paul Sperry is Washington bureau chief for WorldNetDaily.

[TaRaRaBoomDeAyGoreLostToday!]

I am sure 50 people have already or will post this but Barbara Olson told Ted Olson this as a direct witness to one of the flights. I do not think Ted Olson would make this up.

[Darksheare]

Flight 93. Several people called home on cell phones and mentioned box cutters and a 'bomb like object' strapped to one of the hijackers. There was the mention, don't remember from where, that a pair of hands were found bound together with wire at the Trdae Center. Check out Snopes.com, I think. That should have some info. (The Urban References page should have some facts.)

The problem here is, this guy (the article writer) is trying to 'excuse' the terrorists.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Any thought that, just maybe, the FBI interviewed the airport screeners at Boston who may "just perhaps" have remembered seeing (but allowing to pass, since they were legal!) the box cutters actually in the hands of these hijackers?

Why would the FBI need to release very detail of their interviews with these screeners?

Might the screener vidoe photograph records shown box cutters?

[chudogg]

I thought the idea of terrorists using Boxcutters or small knives to hijack a plane was rather far fetched at first, the more you think it about it, it makes incredible sense.

1.About an estimated 30,000 terrorists went through Osama Bin Ladens training camps in afghanistan. And who knows how many in camps around the world.

2.We know for a fact that Bin Laden was planning to use airplanes as missiles since as early as 1995, but it was most probably on his mind much earlier. So for the last decade or so Bin Laden and associates were probably looking for possible candidates among the many tens of thousands of people who were available to him.

3.Now 99% of the people who went through his camps were probably incompetent idiots, but it is feasible to say that 19 of them were smart, strong, and committed to something on the 9/11 scale.

Conclusion:The terrorists were training for over a decade on hand to hand combat. Out of tens of thousands people, the top 20 were picked. To avoid blowing the whole operation, they ignored using bombs or guns, and concentrated soley on small knives and hand to hand combat. Kill about 5 people of the strongest men on aboard to set an example, and the rest will remain complacent thinking they will be allright when they land.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

Someone please help me answer a questions. Was it not legal as of 9-11-01 to carry aboard an airplan a pocket knife with maximum blade length of 3"? Why couldn't they have had small folding knives?