Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
©Associated Press
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 23, 2001
WASHINGTON -- Box-cutting tools like those used by hijackers were found on airliners grounded by the Sept. 11 attacks, authorities said Saturday, as investigators linked a man arrested in London with one of the terrorist pilots.
The discoveries could indicate that attackers planned to commandeer more than the four planes that crashed into the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and a field in western Pennsylvania, said the head of a traveler's advocacy group.
"We don't know how many of the hijackers that actually died were pilots, but there was suspicion that a lot more planes were going to be hit," said David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association.
The Associated Press reported that an unnamed law enforcement source said one of four people arrested in England on Friday took flying lessons at the same Arizona school, and at the same time, as a terrorist in the Pentagon attack.
The 27-year-old man left the United States before the hijackings, said the investigator, who is familiar with the probe but insisted on anonymity. The man, his wife, 25, and his brother, 29, were arrested in west London on Friday by Scotland Yard. A fourth man, in his 40s, was arrested in Birmingham, north of London. Their names were not released.
The 29-year-old man was released from custody Saturday, a Scotland Yard spokeswoman said. The individuals in custody had not been cooperating with authorities, the law enforcement source said.
A second law enforcement source told the Associated Press that the suspects have direct connections to the suicide pilots.
The FBI has identified a Hani Hanjour as one of the terrorists who attacked the Pentagon. FAA records show a Hani Hanjoor as receiving a commercial pilot's license in 1999, listing a post office box in Saudi Arabia as his address.
T. Gerald Chilton Jr., a corporate officer for CRM Airline Training Center in Scottsdale, Ariz., said a man named Hani Hanjoor received pilot training there for three months in 1996, and in December 1997. He put down a $100 deposit toward additional training in 1997 but did not attend more classes.
Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller confirmed that box-cutting tools were discovered when planes were scoured for evidence after airliners were ordered grounded just after the attacks.
Miller said he couldn't confirm how many box cutters were found or the routes the planes were flying. But the AP reported that another government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said they were discovered on two planes.
The Washington Post said the tools were found under adjoining seat cushions on a flight that originated in Boston, and in the trash bin of another plane that was bound for Brussels from Atlanta.
In other developments:
A graduate of a Florida flight school originally named as one of the hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is living in Casablanca and training with a Moroccan airline, an official with the carrier said Saturday.
On Friday, officials at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach said the FBI told school officials that the real Waleed Alshehri is alive and talked to U.S. officials in Morocco last week.
The FBI had named Alshehri as one of the hijackers on American Airlines Flight 11 out of Boston that crashed into the World Trade Center.
The FBI has said that several of the identities of the hijackers are in doubt.
Investigators in Brussels discovered large quantities of chemicals that could be used to make a bomb and that were linked to a Tunisian arrested on suspicion of plotting attacks on U.S. interests in Europe, officials said Saturday.
The 220 pounds of sulfur and 13 gallons of acetone were found in an apartment above a North African fast-food restaurant in central Brussels late Thursday.
The chemicals were mentioned in documents found at the home of the unidentified Tunisian, one of two men arrested last week and suspected of planning anti-U.S. attacks.
The president of Germany's central bank said Saturday that there was mounting evidence that people connected to the Sept. 11 attacks sought to profit from the tragedy by engaging in "terrorism insider trading" on European stock and commodity markets.