After 12:40 p.m. September 11, 2001: FBI Agents Immediately Identify the Flight 77 Hijackers on Airport Security Video

FBI agents are able to identify the alleged hijackers of Flight 77 surprisingly quickly on video recorded this morning by security cameras at Washington’s Dulles International Airport, from where Flight 77 took off. [Trento and Trento, 2006, pp. 36-37; Priska Neely, 10/21/2010] FBI agents arrived at Dulles Airport at around 12:40 p.m. (see (12:40 p.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 9/29/2003 ] The first thing they did there was seize the security video of the west checkpoint in the airport’s main terminal. [Trento and Trento, 2006, pp. 36] The five alleged hijackers passed through this checkpoint on their way to boarding Flight 77 (see 7:18 a.m. September 11, 2001, 7:35 a.m. September 11, 2001, and 7:36 a.m. September 11, 2001) and were captured on video as they did so (see 7:15 a.m.-7:36 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/19/2001; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 3]
FBI ‘Knew Who the Hijackers Were’ – FBI agents now bring Ed Nelson, the supervisor in charge of the west checkpoint, the video recorded at the checkpoint this morning for him to examine. As he watches it with them, he is surprised that they already seem to know who the Flight 77 hijackers were and what they looked like. The agents “went right to the first hijacker on the tape and identified him,” Nelson will later recall. “They would go ‘roll’ and ‘stop it,’ and showed me each of the hijackers,” he will say. He will remark that both of the metal detectors at the checkpoint were open around the time the hijackers were screened and “lots of traffic was moving through.” In light of this, he will say, “picking people out [on a video recording] is hard.” And yet the agents “knew who the hijackers were out of hundreds of people going through the checkpoints.” When an interviewer asks him, “How would they know?” since the “FBI claimed they had no idea who these hijackers were,” Nelson will reply: “Oh, exactly. Yeah, it boggles my mind.” He will comment: “I wanted to know how they had that kind of information. So fast. It didn’t make sense to me.” [Trento and Trento, 2006, pp. 36-37; Priska Neely, 10/21/2010]
FBI Knew Who the Hijackers Were ‘the Day Before,’ Journalist Will Suggest – US Customs reportedly provided the FBI with the passenger lists and the names of the probable hijackers for the four hijacked flights within 45 minutes of the terrorist attacks this morning (see (11:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 1/26/2004] Whether this helped the FBI agents at Dulles Airport to identify the hijackers on the security video is unclear. Investigative journalist Susan Trento will comment on their ability to recognize the hijackers so quickly, stating, “What it says to me is… if they knew [the hijackers] that morning, they knew who they were the day before and they should have been able to catch them before they got to the airport.” [Priska Neely, 10/21/2010]