The Federal Aviation Administration received repeated warnings in the months prior to Sept. 11, 2001, about Al Qaeda and its desire to attack airlines, according to a previously undisclosed report by the commission that investigated the terror attacks.
The report by the Sept. 11 commission detailed 52 such warnings given to FAA leaders from April to Sept. 10, 2001, about the radical Islamic terrorist group and its leader, Osama bin Laden.
The commission report, written in August, said five security warnings mentioned Al Qaeda’s training for hijackings and two reports concerned suicide operations not connected to aviation. However, none of the warnings pinpointed what would happen on Sept. 11.
FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown on Thursday said the agency received intelligence from other agencies, which it passed on to airlines and airports.
But, she said, “We had no specific information about means or methods that would have enabled us to tailor any countermeasures.”
Brown also said the FAA was in the process of tightening security at the time of the attacks.
“We were spending $100 million a year to deploy explosive detection equipment at the airports,” she said. The agency also was close to issuing a regulation that would have set higher standards for screeners and, for the first time, give it direct control over the screening workforce.
Carol Ashley of Rockville Centre, N.Y., whose daughter died in the attacks, said the report should have been released sooner.
“I’m just appalled that this was withheld for five months. That contributes to the idea that the government knew something and didn’t act, it contributes to the conspiracy theories out there. We need to rebut those with the actual facts, but we need the facts to do that,” she said.
———-
Compiled from news services and edited by Patrick Olsen (polsen@tribune.com) and alBerto Trevino (atrevino@tribune.com)
