9/11 FOIA Flight Envelopes
This article is based on the research of Clues Forum proving that on September 11, 2001 the alleged flights AA11, UA93, UA175 and AA77 did in fact not take place.
The 9/11 FOIA Saga
by Hoi Polloi on January 11th, 2010, 9:42 pm
What is a flight manifest?
Official flight manifests are twin copies of the final documents regarding weight of total passengers, crew, fuel on board and so on, signed by the airline captain and put in two places: the airplane itself and the airport from which the plane departed. It would have a final irrefutably "official" passenger list for all the alleged 9/11 flights. If such a document existed, it would override the stupid and inadequate citation in the 9/11 Commission Report even citing correspondence between commissioners as a source of what they guess might be a passenger list — how foolish and pathetic! (See lower post: viewtopic.php?p=2216787#p2216787 for some official citation.) Which terrorist agency is supposed to have ran away with the flight envelopes containing the manifests?
A call to the FAA
When I was first introduced to the world of the researchers by Simon Shack, who had already done some scouting ahead, as it were, we would occasionally chat about various odd behaviors of officials and what we could do to get a straight answer. So after a few years of casual research and gaining confidence, and with September Clues fairly fresh in my mind, I got to thinking that this would actually be a pretty good idea. (Update: I called the FAA about the flight envelopes as early as 2008 or 2009.) Anyway, the response of the official I spoke with was something like this: No airplane should ever be allowed to take off without doing that paperwork. If any did, the airline would be dissolved by the government immediately and not allowed to fly passengers. I commented that it must be strange that the 9/11 flights never had any flight manifests reported and the official agreed with me; that would be very strange indeed. Then he paused and, as if unable to comprehend such a scenario, insisted: there must be flight manifests. Somewhere. The FAA would have to have them and if not them, some other agency. The fact that the manifests didn't or wouldn't exist was, in short, inconceivable.
I managed to contact another FAA official shortly, and it was determined that all 9/11 data was given to NARA. I confirmed with the airport and the FAA: all 9/11 data.
All. 9/11 data. Was now in the hands of NARA — the National Archives.
FOIA to NARA
Thus began my quest for the 9/11 Flight Manifests, which I hoped would be divulged to the public with my FOIA request. But when I filed the FOIA, NARA replied that — although they were indeed in possession of all 9/11 data — nothing resembling a flight manifest or flight envelope was in their archive.
Borrowing the incredulity of the FAA officials that had convinced me they must exist, I acquired from them a list of all the 9/11 files in their archive (including only short names and descriptions) so that I could hand pick files that may lead me to the ultimate fate of those manifests. They did not want to tell me more information, since they believed that I should know what I'm looking for. A security procedure or obfuscation measure maybe — after all, I can quite rightly be called ignorant for not giving them any further specification about what absolutely should be there. Yet, when I asked for "envelope", "manifest" and "passenger list" files, they said nothing in the archive at all matched those terms.
So, with confidence and a pen, I picked data logs, NORAD/FAA recordings, written documents and anything labeled flight 11, 77, 93, 175, etc. — but without a good way to ask them the actual contents, I defaulted to the principle that more would be better than less at this point. After a long time (the dragging correspondence I had with them is documented in this thread) the files finally were prepared. I had apparently, according to NARA, selected a mishmash of useless, unrelated, and seemingly minimal data describing the bare minimum of alleged "research" done by "officials" in response to the 9/11 drill-that-was-never-an-actually-proven-terrorist-attack. Yet, what choice had they given me? The manifests don't exist, and what they have prepared all barely resembles anything that would be part of an official investigation into the massive conspiracy the government says exists.
And so, ultimately, this bizarre collection has a largely artificial air to it, as if presented by agents dabbling in stretching the truth with forged seals and so on, but not with the experience/intoxication levels of the low level calviphiles that hammered out the official CNN vicsim propaganda. I invite you to take a look at what they claim is a generous sample from "all 9/11 data" supposedly in possession by NARA.
http://www.septclues.com/NARA-FOIA/NW_35023/
(Warning: some sound files are extremely long and dull large and may take some time to tolerate or believe download.)
--- The following is a record of my attempts to acquire flight data about the supposed flights which were allegedly hijacked on 9/11. --- It started with a conversation about the existence of the "envelope" for all flights which leave American airports -- and the sudden realization that apparently nobody else has filed FOIA requests to receive this data ... and thus all the data that would have to list all terrorists and passengers in a final list that could not change. Since one copy goes with the pilot and one stays on the ground, there should have been absolutely no confusion about the passengers as there apparently are.
This is how I filled in their form:
09/29/2009 01:32
To: _________@FAA
Subject: Request under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. 552
Fee category:
I request that a copy of the following documents (or documents containing the following information) be provided to me:
I am requesting something known as THE ENVELOPE for the four alleged hijacked flights on 9/11. I am specifically looking for a document in this envelope, signed by the aircraft Captain on each flight, which contains the final passenger manifest,the destination, the amount of fuel on board, the names of the pilot and flight attendants, etc., and the time the door of the aircraft was closed.
This document is supposed to be in this envelope when it is handed to the chief Flight Attendant, who hands it to a terminal employee. The chief flight attendant then closes the door and this document remains on the ground in airline custody. It is required by the FAA, and is what is opened in case of a crash. Every person on board, including late arrivals or supposed hijackers would be accounted for.
I would like this document for the four apparent flights of AA11, AA77 (both American Airlines), and UA175 and UA93 (both United Airlines).
In order to determine my status to assess fees, you should know that my fee category is: an individual seeking records for personal use and not for profit.
The maximum dollar amount I am willing to pay for this request is $50. Please notify me if the fees will exceed $25.00 or the maximum dollar amount I entered.
I request a waiver of all fees for this request. Specific explanation for waiver of fees:
1. This document may reveal complicity of traitorous factions within our government who allowed the crime of 9/11 to take place and protected its operants. 2. This document may reveal names of individuals complicit who have positions in our government and who want to undermine the present administration. 3. This document will help the American people understand who was responsible for the 9/11 terror event. 4. The American people may be able, with cooperation of loyal American government persons, to oust the traitors and try them for war crimes against Americans. 5. I have no explanation of how this information could be commercially exploited. As an important element of the public record, it may appear in books or newspapers or magazines. However, the nature of the information may be so controversial that no commercial interest will print it. Therefore, it is nigh guaranteed that commercial interests are at the lowest level possible. 6. I have no further explanation as to how this information could be commercially exploited. I have no commercial interest in this information whatsoever, and I think the American people will benefit in social and political understanding strictly.
I request expedited processing of the request and provide a justification below. I believe a compelling need exists to warrant expedited processing because there is an imminent threat to the life or physical safety of an individual.
Please see above explanations and the reason for expedition should be urgently clear.
Thank you for your consideration of this request.
Sincerely, ________
This was the FAA's first response:
Mr. ______:
All Federal Aviation Administration records related to September 11, 2001 have been sent the National Archives and Records Administration, which now has legal custody of the files.
You may wish to contact NARA at:
Ms. Martha Wagner Murphy Special Access and FOIA Staff (NWCTF) National Archives and Records Administration 8601 Adelphi Road College Park, MD 20740-6001
Please let us know if you will withdraw your request to the FAA.
Thank you Joann FOIA Program Office 202-267-7950
Just in case I misread, I sent this response:
I will submit the request to the FAA in case anything comes out of it. It seems organizations in our government are sometimes unwilling to talk to one another about this issue.
I will also send a new request to NARA and forward this e-mail to them.
Thank you so much for your help! Sincerely, ________
which was responded to:
The FAA does not have any records -- all records were sent to NARA, who now has legal custody of the records.
But just to be completely Kafka-esque, I ventured:
I understand. Is there any further this request can go in the FAA, please?
Thank you so much!
And finally received this seemingly definitive response:
Mr. ______:
Sorry, but there is no other office involved in the 9/11 issue. One office collected all records on the 9/11 hijackings. On September 14, these FAA records were officially transferred to NARA. All requests for 9/11 records are to be sent to NARA at the address provided to you in an earlier email.
Thank you FAA FOIA office
So, I thanked them for their time and continued my pursuit at NARA.
Then, a separate request specifically to NARA:
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:58:56 Subject: FOIA Request To: foia@nara.gov
National Archives,
I have been referenced your office by the FAA, and I have forwarded ahead of this e-mail the response I received from them in regards to this request. In that response, I was told that all information pertaining to 9/11 was transfered to your offices. Presumably, the information I have submitted a request for is regarded by the FAA as pertaining to 9/11. So I am now submitting the request to you. I am asking that a copy of the following documents (or documents containing the following information) be provided to me:
Some weeks passed, and I received a physical envelope with the message that my request has been processed and I could seek updates at an e-mail address at NARA.
My requests to that address have thus far yielded no response whatsoever.
Last edited by hoi.polloi on May 22nd, 2016, 5:17 am, edited 10 times in total. Reason: adding links on first post
Hoi Polloi's Request letter
by hoi.polloi on September 13th, 2010, 9:31 pm
Okay, I have significantly lightened the tone. Here is my request:
NARA c/o Mr. David G. Paynter,
I have just received your letter dated August 30, 2010. Thank you for writing about this crucial issue. I am pleased that you have offered to pursue the case further and for offering to send me the file referenced (a copy of the directory). Please send me that document. I am sorry that you failed to find what I am seeking. I was expecting the persons assigned to address my case would be knowledgeable about FAA and DOT matters and would be able to find documentation of the load manifest outside of any particular FAA hard drive, or a flight log that would certainly have been permanently stored in the NARA records by well within the end of 2001 for security and historical purposes.
It has been almost a year since my request was filed and, in that time, no final passenger list has been acquired for any of the four flights. In fact, none has been released since September 11, 2001 or ever. The new information you have given me is that no relevant information to my FOIA request regarding passengers on September 11, 2001 can be located within FAA or NARA documentation. After 9 years, no final list of passenger deaths can be agreed upon by our countrymen and countrywomen. This is a patriotic conundrum. How is it that we still don't know who did or did not die on 9/11? Hopefully you appreciate the importance of my FOIA request.
Although you mention searching for some of the terms I requested, you did not mention searching for any passenger lists or flight loads. You also are asking me to provide you with official terminology for the term "the envelope" or a load manifest form. I cannot provide serial numbers; I do not know them. I assure you that a load is always documented and retained for several months after every flight. Today, a load manifest or preflight load report must be retained 12 full months after the flight. If NARA failed to collect and store this document during the time of its allowed existence, we might presume it officially never existed or is of no interest to the government's investigation of 9/11, which is a deeply disturbing concept.
I urge you to help me find all related flight documentation attached to my request. The load manifests must remain on the ground, at the airport. Perhaps your search would be easier if you went to http://www.faa.gov and examined section 665 of the FAA's required FARS documents, specifically on "Load manifests".
In your letter, it seems I was given the following choices:
1. You stay on as my remote researcher with the amount of information you have identified as relevant to my request 2. I appeal to the Deputy Archivist to address my request (by October of this year)
Since you have outlined these for me, I would like to make both choices. Please pursue this public document. Please send me the file you have offered so we can proceed. While you are working on that, I can appeal to the Deputy Archivist to do their own search for 'the envelope' as you have offered. Then we will have more than one NARA employee on this important matter.
If you cannot find a final domestic passenger manifest or load manifest in the FAA, DOT or NARA's collection, or you lose the trail, please reference another office that my FOIA request can be sent to.
Thank you very much. Cordially, Mr. _____________
9/11 Commission Report Summary Findings for the four hijacked flights
by Hoi Polloi on September 19th, 2010, 5:55 pm
While that goes out there, undoubtedly to be ignored at NARA for another year, I thought I would take a look at the documentation Mr. Paynter recommended I examine - namely, the 9/11 Commission Report's summary of findings for the four hijacked flights, which they refer to as a Staff Monograph(?!?)
The list of the flight passengers is summarized in the September 12, 2005 version in the following way:
AA11
The aircraft had a capacity of 158 passengers: 9 seats in first class, 30 in business class, and 119 in coach.[35] On September 11, the flight carried 81 passengers (including the 5 terrorists) with 2 pilots and 9 flight attendants, for a total of 92 people on baord.
All 9 of the first-class seats were occupied, 2 of them by hijackers Waleed al Shehri and Wail al Shehri. Nineteen of the 30 seats in business class were occupied (49 percent), 3 by hijackers Atta, Omari, and Suqami.[36] Fifty-three of the 119 coach seats were occupied (44 percent), none of them by hijackers.
UA175
The aircraft had a capacity of 168 passengers: 10 in first class, 33 in business class, and 125 in coach. The flight carried 56 passengers (including 5 hijackers) with 2 pilots and 7 flight attendants, for a total of 65 people on board.
Nine of the 10 first-class seats were occupied, including 2 by hijackers Banihammad and Mohand al Shehri. Eleven of the 33 business-class seats were occupied, 3 by hijackers Shehhi, Hamza al Ghamdi, and Ahmed al Ghamdi; and 36 of the 125 coach seats were occupied, none by hijackers.[137]
AA77
The aircraft had a capacity of 176 passengers, 22 in first class and 154 in coach. On September 11, 2001, the flight carried 58 passengers (including 5 hijackers) with 2 pilots and 4 flight attendants for a total of 64 people on baord. Fifteen of the 22 first-class seats were occupied, 3 by hijackers. Forty-three of the 154 economy seats aboard were occupied, 2 by hijackers.[233]
UA93
On September 11, 2001, the flight carried 37 passengers (including 4 hijackers) with two pilot [could they mean 'pilots'? - hp] and 5 flight attendants for a total of 44 people on board.
Ten passengers were seated in first class, including all four of the hijackers; the other 27 were in coach. There was no business class on Flight 93.[303]
The following - as bizarre as these "references" are - are all that are given for the various ways these compilations were written up with "citation" but without any apparent use of a load manifest document:
References 36 [ONLY reference given for passenger seating for AA11]
AAL Record "Passenger Name List Flight 11/September 11", undated.
137 [ONLY reference given for passenger seating for UA175]
FAA report, "Executive Summary Chronology of a Multiple Hijacking Crisis, September 11, 2001," September 17, 2001; UAL report, Flight 175, Flight Data Recap; UAL response to Commission questions for the record, May 13, 2004.
233 [ONLY reference given for passenger seating for AA77]
Wednesdays were the next lowest at 40.3 percent. AAL report,"Average Load Factor by Day-of-Week," undated (for Flights 11 and 77 from June 11, 2001 to Sept. 9. 2001); and AAL report, email response from Christopher R. Christensen to Commission questions for the record, January 20, 2004.
303 [ONLY reference given for passenger seating for UA93]
UAL response to Commission questions for the record, April 5, 2004.
In other words, no AAL Record or document named "Passenger Name List Flight 175/September 11" or any flight besides AA11 seems to have been written up for them to reference. The reference given for AA77 appears to be a "gaff" in which the reference for the load percentage paragraph that follows the passenger seating breakdown is conveniently confused as a reference for the latter! Slick. Reminds me of the CNN pages that would skip vicsims when you clicked "next". As for flight 93, its reference given for the passenger seating is the same citation given for the previous two citations. That's some boring interview! (I imagine it went something like this, "So United Airlines ... uh ... how many passengers would you say are normally on this flight compared to how many were on during the terrorist hijackings of September 11, 2001 now known as Patriot Day? More passengers usually? Or perhaps it was fewer passengers? Take your time in answering ... I see. Well that was our main concern. Would you say this is slightly more or a lot more? Hm. Hm. Great. Well I guess we have one more question ... you know ... to satisfy those liberal weirdos out there. Could you tell us how many terrorists had purchased first class tickets? One? Two? Okay. Great. Well, I guess we're done with this interview ... what? Load manifests? Do we want to see them? I don't know what you're talking about. Get out of my office!")
This pathetic document must be seen to be believed! This crass excuse for a fake 'declassified' pile of poorly strung-together lies is astoundingly insulting to our intelligence as information consumers. http://archives.gov/legislative/research/9-11/
Official Commission References For Passenger Numbers
by [[Hoi Polloi]] on December 10th, 2010, 1:10 am
It has been noted that the four apparently fictional flights were composed of the unlikely number sequence honoring some kind of sanctity for the "11" number:
11....11 93....9+3=12 175...1+7+5=13 77....7+7=14
...but did you know that the official take-off time ranges for these flights are - chronologically - in that very order?
AA11 @ 7:45 - 7:59 UA93 @ 7:xx - 8:01 UA175 @ x:xx - 8:14 AA77 @ x:xx - 8:20
11 - 12 - 13 - 14 HOW CONTRIVED CAN YOU GET?
It is extremely bad if a company doesn't answer the FAA requirement for a manifest for each and every flight. It is "more than frowned upon" according to my conversation with an FAA official. Combined with the idea that these very alleged flights somehow got into an accident that is supposed to have had weight play an integral part of the accident story (thin aluminum inexplicably barging through thick steel structures) the companies responsible would have to face some kind of negligence fees beyond any previously known. American Airlines and United Airlines would have to have copies of the manifests that the FAA don't. If not them, the NTSB.
However - a single office - NARA - collected all the 9/11 data in the country according to the FAA.
The facts that NARA cannot turn up any documents of the load manifests in the FAA, and that they don't have any 9/11 documents for American Airlines or United Airlines, and that they seem to be strongly delaying their response to my FOIA for the documents in the FAA archive that can lead to more clues ... all tell me there are no such documents in existence unless they are amongst the government Commission documents not subject to FOIA.
If they are in the government Commission documents, then why does the Commission cite four wildly varied sources other than flight manifests for their numbers?
Official Commission References For Passenger Numbers
AAL Record "Passenger Name List Flight 11/September 11", undated. FAA report, "Executive Summary Chronology of a Multiple Hijacking Crisis, September 11, 2001," September 17, 2001; UAL report, Flight 175, Flight Data Recap; UAL response to Commission questions for the record, May 13, 2004. email response from Christopher R. Christensen to Commission questions for the record, January 20, 2004. UAL response to Commission questions for the record, April 5, 2004.
And why do the lists of supposed dead fail to produce consistent numbers? Of any of the names listed as passengers, why do their pictures resemble computer generated, fictional persons and why do only four of the names attached to such poor simulations of people actually connect to a Social Security number in the SSDI?
And why were all the videos of the airplane crashes FAKED - and faked so many times and from so many 3-D angles that the number of proffered chance videographers boggles the imagination? (Not to mention each and every one of their amazingly coincidental connections to the professional media world that is saturated with special effects.)
It is easy to assume from all this that such magical, bureaucracy-dodging airplanes with overly insistent videos of impossible physics and fuzzy, nebulous passengers that don't even take up the capacity of the airplane models alleged to be those that crashed ... mean to tell us THE "HIJACKED" 9/11 AIRPLANES AND THEIR PASSENGERS ARE ENTIRELY FICTIONAL AND BARELY EXIST ON PAPER.
Now, ask yourself: why exactly would there have to be a vast international conspiracy to tell us all this after it took us 9 years to deduce? Those are some pretty ballsy psychic perps if we were "meant" to figure this out as some have alleged!
See also
References
Fakeologist
Cluesforum
Hoaxbusters