9/11 : How do they know the hijackers had box cutters?

[GUH!]

How do they know the hijackers had box cutters? There's obviously no physical evidence, and as far as I know, no phone calls from the plane remarked specifically that the hijackers had box cutters. Yet, the U.S. government stated soon after the attacks that the terrorists were armed with box cutters. How does they know this? And moreover, is it possible, could the statement be a possible coverup for major failings in airport security (i.e. the terrorists actually got more serious weapons into the plane)?

[Phlosphr]

I believe on one of the cell phone conversations one o the people said they had box cutters IIRC.

[mack]

From CNN:

The hijackers who seized the airliners on September 11 had used box cutters to attack some of the crew and passengers, according to government officials and accounts from passengers in-flight who phoned relatives before their planes crashed.

[GUH!]

No, I believe that statement is misleading. Cell phone calls-- perhaps only one of them, actually-- mentioned unspecified weapons, but I do not believe anyone said "box cutters" or "knives" or whatever. Can anyone confirm this?

[Wumpus]

The recent Congressional report is of no great help: the only reference to box cutters in its 858 page bulk is this:

"According to Director Mueller, the hijackers “apparently using commonly available box cutters” seized the aircraft...." [p. 141]

So I guess we'll have to track down FBI chief Mueller and ask him.

Link to the report:

http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2...ort_errata.pdf

[Walloon]

Los Angeles Times, Sept. 12, 2001:

It was unclear if any guns were used in the hijackings Tuesday, and urgent in-flight cellular telephone calls from two of the doomed flights suggested the terrorists were armed with knives or "knifelike objects." In one call, a flight attendant on one of the flights that struck the World Trade Center reportedly said a fellow crew member had been stabbed. In another, CNN commentator Barbara Olson, a passenger on the plane that would smash into the Pentagon, told her husband that the flight had been hijacked with men carrying knives and box cutters.

[GUH!]

"Stabbed" with a box cutter?

[Walloon]

Yes, stabbed with a box cutter.

[GUH!]

Hm. Yeah, I was thinking of the other kind, but still... this kind is only sharp on one edge-- and it's not the edge you'd stab someone with. It seems like it would be sort of hard to make a deep wound with this, especially without breaking it.

[Eirik]

I might just be putting together pieces in my head, but I thought that investigators had found that at least some of the terrorists had bought the boxcutters just hours or days ahead of the attacks.

[kanicbird]

It seems like it would be sort of hard to make a deep wound with this, especially without breaking it.

Got $10, buy one of those box cutters and a rump roast, see for yourself how easy it is to make a 'deep wound'

[Tuckerfan]

Last I heard, it was illegal in NYC for anyone under the age of 18 to buy a box cutter. Seems they're the favored method of settling schoolyard "debates."

[Gozu Tashoya]

Originally posted by kanicbird
Got $10, buy one of those box cutters and a rump roast, see for yourself how easy it is to make a 'deep wound'

Plus that's the little pansy-man box-cutter. There are box cutters with wider blades that aren't scored to break.

[doctordoowop]

Perhaps one or more was found in Pennsylvania or at the Petagon crash sites.

[amanset]

Originally posted by Tuckerfan
Last I heard, it was illegal in NYC for anyone under the age of 18 to buy a box cutter. Seems they're the favored method of settling schoolyard "debates."

Am I right in saying that a box cutter is simialr to what they call a "stanley knife" in the UK? In Scotland criminals, apparently, use stanley knives with two blades a coupel of millimetres apart which leaves a gash that really doesn't heal that well.

[scr4]

Originally posted by KKBattousai
There are box cutters with wider blades that aren't scored to break.

Were those allowed on airlines before 9/11?

[Una Persson]

Well, I would sometimes carry a 3-inch pocketknife on the plane before 9/11 with no trouble, so a box cutter might have passed inspection.

Seriously, threads like this worry me, especially when the word and item "box cutter" has taken on a whole new significance in American society as a result. I mean, the fact that no one can readily point to clear, unambiguous proof that there was even a box cutter on the planes.

[Askia]

Originally posted by Tuckerfan
Last I heard, it was illegal in NYC for anyone under the age of 18 to buy a box cutter. Seems they're the favored method of settling schoolyard "debates."

It's not hard to get ahold of a free box cutter. Box cutters were standard issue at the Kroger grocery stores I worked in Atlanta and Columbus, Oh -- for free -- plus they were always left laying around unattended in the receiving area or while the stockers were putting up groceries.

This is the kind I used to use and the kind I envisioned when I heard they were used in the 9/11 hijackings.

I think a fatal wound made with a box cutter is more akin to a slashing cut rather than a blunt stab, like the shivs and razor blade weapons in prison. (Yes, I watched a lot of 'OZ'.)

[Walloon]

Flight 77 (crashed into Pentagon): Passenger Barbara Olson, in telephone call to husband, said that the flight had been hijacked with men carrying knives and box cutters.

Flight 11 (crashed into World Trade Center): Flight attendants Betty Ong and Madeline Amy Sweeney, made cell phone calls to Americal Airlines ground controllers. Ong, who was in the first class compartment, reported that she had seen four hijackers come from first-class seats, kill a passenger seated behind them, and use a chemical weapon which she described as "some sort of spray" that made her eyes burn and made it difficult for her to breathe. Sweeney, the flight attendant in the rear compartment, said that the pilots, another flight attendant and a passenger had been stabbed or killed.

Flight 93 (crashed into field in Pennsylvania): Passenger Tom Burnett told his wife over a cell phone that he had heard that a pilot had been "knifed." The Illinois State Police received a call from a passenger saying that three hijackers were on board with knives, making a bomb threat.

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

Maybe modified box-cutter handles, with true dagger blades inside?

[pezwookiee]

I can't find a link right now, but I think it was in Time Magazine or some such where they showed pictures of objects recovered from Flight 93. One of these objects recovered from the wreckage was a box cutter, assumed to be one of the ones used by a hijacker. So, yes, conclusive proof that boxcutters were on board was found.

And I believe it was one of the ones with a thick black handle and the trapezoidal removable blades (not the break-off blades).

[Askia]

Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor. You can do plenty of damage with an ordinary cardboard box cutter without modifying the blade. In fact, an ordinary box cutter might appear innocuous enough pre-9/11 to be let aboard an airplane if packed with, say, art supplies or a toolbelt. My WAG.

[Tuckerfan]

Originally posted by Askia
Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor. You can do plenty of damage with an ordinary cardboard box cutter without modifying the blade. In fact, an ordinary box cutter might appear innocuous enough pre-9/11 to be let aboard an airplane if packed with, say, art supplies or a toolbelt. My WAG.

It depends upon the rent-a-cops that were doing the security check ins. In the early 1990s I worked for a company that gave it's employees box cutters. These were simply stamped steel pieces that held a razor blade. One time when I went to the airport to take a trip to see a relative I had some of these in my pocket. Showed them to the security guards and they made me take the blades out and give them to them. A year or so later, I went to the same airport to pick up my brother, and when I showed them to the rent-a-cop, he went ballastic and I had to give them to him on the spot. IIRC, the hijackers picked the airports that they did because they knew those airports had lax security.

[Marley23]

Were those allowed on airlines before 9/11?

scr4, knives with blades up to three inches long (I think it was three) were allowed on airlines until September 11. That's long enough to do plenty of damage.

[Walloon]

A box cutter was among the belongings left at a motel in Deerfield Beach, Florida, by one of the hijackers two days before Sept. 11.

[Desmostylus]

Originally posted by Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor
Maybe modified box-cutter handles, with true dagger blades inside?

As others have said, you can do plenty of damage with an ordinary box-cutter. As for box-cutters with dagger blades, they're readily available:

http://www.colehardware.com/hotline/...4/stn_knif.htm

[GUH!]

Originally posted by Askia
It's not hard to get ahold of a free box cutter. Box cutters were standard issue at the Kroger grocery stores I worked in Atlanta and Columbus, Oh -- for free -- plus they were always left laying around unattended in the receiving area or while the stockers were putting up groceries.

This is the kind I used to use and the kind I envisioned when I heard they were used in the 9/11 hijackings.

I think a fatal wound made with a box cutter is more akin to a slashing cut rather than a blunt stab, like the shivs and razor blade weapons in prison. (Yes, I watched a lot of 'OZ'.)

Walloon, what's the source on this information?

And how come no one here has been able to provide a link to a reliable news source that explicitly states either that a) box cutters were found in the wreckage, or b) that someone on the plane mentioned "box cutters"?

Maybe I sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but I wonder if the US Gov't just told people that it was box cutters and everyone just went along with it without really questioning it.

[GUH!]

Sorry, I quoted the wrong thing. I meant this:

"Flight 77 (crashed into Pentagon): Passenger Barbara Olson, in telephone call to husband, said that the flight had been hijacked with men carrying knives and box cutters.

Flight 11 (crashed into World Trade Center): Flight attendants Betty Ong and Madeline Amy Sweeney, made cell phone calls to Americal Airlines ground controllers. Ong, who was in the first class compartment, reported that she had seen four hijackers come from first-class seats, kill a passenger seated behind them, and use a chemical weapon which she described as "some sort of spray" that made her eyes burn and made it difficult for her to breathe. Sweeney, the flight attendant in the rear compartment, said that the pilots, another flight attendant and a passenger had been stabbed or killed.

Flight 93 (crashed into field in Pennsylvania): Passenger Tom Burnett told his wife over a cell phone that he had heard that a pilot had been "knifed." The Illinois State Police received a call from a passenger saying that three hijackers were on board with knives, making a bomb threat."

[Walloon]

Flight 77 (crashed into Pentagon): Fox News interview with Ted Olson: "[Barbara Olson] indicated that they had used knifes and box-cutters to take over the plane."

Flight 11 (crashed into World Trade Center): ABC News interview with American Airlines ground manager Michael Woodward: "[Amy Sweeney] said they had stabbed the two first-class flight attendants, Barbara Arestegui and Karen Martin, whose station at the front of the plane likely made them the first crew members to confront the hijackers. She said they had also slashed the throat of a business class passenger, who was bleeding severely."

ABC News interview with American Airlines reservation agent Vanessa Minter and security officer Nydia Gonzales: "[Betty Ong] told the two women the hijackers had sprayed something in the first-class cabin to keep people out of the front of the plane."

Flight 93 (crashed into field in Pennsylvania): CNN interview with Deena Burnett: "[Tom Burnett] said, 'They've already knifed a guy; they're saying they have a bomb. Please call the authorities.'"

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette interview with GTE operator Lisa Jefferson: "[Todd Beamer] knew there were at least three hijackers, two with knives who had commandeered the plane's controls and one with a suspected bomb strapped around his waist who kept watch on the passengers."

[Walloon]

And at the risk of repeating myself, a box cutter was among the belongings left by one of the hijackers in a motel room in Florida, two days before Sept. 11. See the link I provided five messages above.

[pezwookiee]

Originally posted by GUH!
Maybe I sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but I wonder if the US Gov't just told people that it was box cutters and everyone just went along with it without really questioning it.

What evidence is there to make us believe that box cutters weren't used? There seems to be an underlying need to have this story not be true. It is f*cking scary that a plane, your plane or my plane, could be hijacked by men with box cutters. But that's what the evidence we have points to. (And we can argue for hours about possible evidence we don't have, but this will remain conjecture.)

No, it was only later that the government lied to us. (Weapons of mass destruction, Saddam's link to Al-Qaida, et cetera, et cetera....)

[Walloon]

Note that the hijackers seem to have combined the use of box cutters and knives with the threat of a bomb. Had the passengers known that the hijackers possessed only the knives (and possibly mace), they could have probably overwhelmed and disarmed the hijackers. Even some passengers doubted that the bomb was real.

[Wyatt]

Yeah ... with the twisted humor, here, is that a plane Can't be hijacked using box-cutters, anymore. Those self-destruct hijacks ruined it for "regular" hijackers.
Prior to 9/11, the standard response to a hijack was that the more the people on-board cooperated, the less chance anyone would get hurt.
Now, hijacking has an entirely different face, doesn't it. Noone would assume, that if a guy waved a knife around, or even stabbed someone, that the "safest" response would be to sit quietly in their seats.
I'm pretty sure if someone tried to hijack a plane, today, the passengers would Not sit and cooperate. I'm thinking, even a threat of "I have a bomb!" would result in a passenger attack, not complacent sitting by, hoping everything was gonna turn out all right.
Just my thoughts ...

[Angelic1]

well from this little city girl on the other side of the world all I can say is that I am still deeply moved by all of the events involved in the killing of so many innocent people. Box Cutters or not it was a tragedy to the enth degree and one that I hope will never ever be repeated. Sadly though as this world spins around you can guarantee that somewhere out there, there are more psychotic people who don't care if they die to murder/injury many others.
Very Sad

Peace Out!!!