Some of the 9/11 hijackers drove from Boston to Portland, Maine on 9/10, then flew back to Boston early on 9/11 to begin their attack. Has anyone ever determined the purpose of their trip to Maine?
Just a WAG, but I believe they did that because the airport security in Portland was weaker than the security at Boston. So, once they’d passed through security in Portland, they could catch their “connecting” flight in Boston without having to go through a security check again.
Quick meeting of al-Qaidayuh
Welcome to the boards coco. There is a man who is a member of the orads here who wasON the plane with the hijackers. It took him about a year if memory serves, but he posted his story here…I’ll look up the cite.
Anyway as per your OP, Poartland has a tiny airport, with relatively low security…(not any more) and they knew if they got on in Portland, they could easily board their fated Boston Connector.
Obviously that should say …there is a man who is a member of the BOARDS…
If I recall correctly, the theory was that they didn’t want to all show up at the same ticket counters, all being on the same flights. The idea is that a ticket agent might be suspisious about four Arab men flying with similar tickets on the same flight, but by connecting through another airport they didn’t raise any eyebrows.
Havn’t heard if any of the other hijackers did anything similar before getting on their flights at Newark or Dulles. Perhaps the fact that they were planning on hijacking two flights out of Boston caused them to split up like that.
Here is Nuke’s account of his Portland-to-Boston flight.