This article about the 9/11 hijackings is one to read: Stewardess ID's Hijackers Early, Transcripts Show by Gail Sheehy New York Observer 02/11/04 (via Atrios). It raises some important factual questions about how the airlines and the government handled the hijacking that are more than just details.
For one, there are real questions about whether the passengers on United Flight 93 actually brought down the plane in the famous "Let's roll" incident. (Although there doesn't seem to be any question that they made the attempt.)
For another, Amy Sweeney, a flight attendent on American Flight 11 from Boston, the one carrying ringleader Mohammed Atta, reported on the Airfone to the airline's Flight Service that one of the hijackers had a bomb. Her contact asked her, "How do you know it's a bomb?" And she responded by saying, "Because the hijackers showed me a bomb," adding a desciption of the yellow and red wires on the device. Both Sweeney and Betty Ong, another attendant on the same flight, reported that the hijackers used mace or pepper spray.
The famous box-cutters the hijackers supposedly used may have been present on only one plane. Sheehy points out that box cutters "were always illegal" on planes. But, she says, the airlines later "switched their story and produced a snap-open knife of less than four inches" at a 9/11 commission hearing, suggesting that those were the weapons used. Those weapons were legal to bring on the plane.
The most surprising single thing to me was a credible report of a bomb. Given pre-9/11 airport security procedures, I can easily believe someone could sneak a knife or even a box-cutter aboard. But a bomb, or an object that looked like a bomb? That's a whole other question.
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