Ariel Merari

The FAA’s intelligence division conducts a conference call to examine the idea of “suicide attackers” during which a leading authority on the subject says a suicide attack on aviation is unlikely. At an unspecified time before 9/11, James Padgett—the manager of the global issues division of the FAA’s Office of Civil Aviation Security Intelligence at the time of the 9/11 attacks—arranges a conference call in which the analysts in his division get to talk to Ariel Merari, a professor of psychology at Tel Aviv University in Israel, about suicide terrorism. [9/11 Commission, 10/7/2003 ] Merari has spent years studying suicide attacks around the world and specializes in the profiles of suicide bombers. [Boston Globe, 9/23/2001; Washington Post, 10/16/2001] He has authored or coauthored numerous books, articles, monographs, and chapters on political terrorism and other forms of political violence, and has served as a consultant to various branches of several governments. [Merari, 10/2000 ] Merari says, during the conference call, that throughout his research he has yet to find a single instance of a suicide attack on aviation. He says he thinks such an attack would be unlikely for psychological reasons relating to the extended time between the “point of no return” and the execution of the attack. He “certainly did not raise the possibility of multiple hijackers willing to kill themselves,” Padgett will later comment. [9/11 Commission, 10/7/2003 ]