File:  BPBquelle01

Airport security manager Ed Nelson of Dulles Airport told to authors Susan and Joseph Trento that shortly after arriving at the airport on the morning of 9/11, FBI agents confiscated a security tape from a checkpoint through which he believed the alleged hijackers had passed before boarding the plane. He then described the scene and expressed his surprise that the FBI agents could already at that time pick out on the security tape “the hijackers” from hundreds of others passengers:

They pulled the tape right away…. They brought me to look at it. They went right to the first hijacker on the tape and identified him. They knew who the hijackers were out of hundreds of people going through the checkpoints. They would go ‘roll and stop it’ and showed me each of the hijackers…. It boggles my mind that they had already had the hijackers identified…. Both metal detectors were open at that time, and lots of traffic was moving through. So picking people out is hard…. I wanted to know how they had that kind of information. So fast. It didn’t make sense to me.”

Source: Susan B. Trento and Joseph J. Trento, Unsafe at any Altitude: Failed Terrorism Investigations, Scapegoating 9/11, and the Shocking Truth about Aviation Security Today, (Steerforth Press, October 2006), p. 37