A great nation deserves the truth

Actually, though I doubt you’ll believe me, I really don’t care all that much about Path to 9/11 anymore — as I’ve said, nine out of ten Americans probably WON’T watch it (including me).

But the more one learns about it, the more one’s jaw just drops:

This from AMERICAblog, where the writer has seen the film:

Here’s what the “Path to 9/11” claims American Airlines did on the morning of September 11. According to Disney/ABC, American Airlines had Mohammad Atta at its ticket counter and a warning came up on the screen when he tried to check in. The AA employee called a supervisor who kind of shrugged and said, blithely, just let him through. The first employee, shocked, turned to her supervisor and said, shouldn’t we search him? The American Airlines supervisor responds, nah, just hold his luggage until he boards the plane. The scene is clearly intended to make American Airlines look negligent.

Only problem? It never happened.

First off, Disney/ABC got the airport wrong. The warning for Mohammad Atta’s ticket popped up in Portland, Maine, not at Boston Logan as the tv show claims (this is on page 1 of the September 11 Commission report).

Second, the security rules at the time said nothing about searching a passenger who has a “warning” pop up, they only required that the bags be held until the passenger boarded. The Disney/ABC tv show, on the other hand, clearly tries to imply that American Airlines violated the security rules in letting Atta go. This simply isn’t true. (This is also on page 1 of the report.)

But most importantly, Disney/ABC implicated the wrong airline. And I quote the Director of the FBI:

On September 11, at 6:00 AM, Mohamed Atta and Abdul Aziz al Omari boarded a U.S. Airways flight leaving Portland, Maine en route to Boston’s Logan Airport.

I think American Airlines is going to be very unhappy. [Update: They were. See my comment.]