NSI

Around this date, American Airlines sends out an internal memo warning its employees to be on the lookout for impostors after one of its crews had uniforms and ID badges stolen in Rome, Italy, in April. [Reuters, 9/14/2001; Boston Globe, 9/18/2001] On April 6, a pilot and a flight attendant staying at a hotel in Rome had their rooms broken into. Several items, including identifications, a key card granting access to any American Airlines facility in the world, documents, the pilot’s wallet, an American Airlines uniform jacket and tie, along with documents and two passports, were stolen when thieves got a safe out of the hotel undetected. [CNN, 9/13/2001] It will later be reported that two of the hijackers on Flight 11 on 9/11 used these stolen IDs to board the plane. [Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 9/16/2001] On 9/11, a man will be arrested with four Yemeni passports (all using different names) and two Lufthansa crew uniforms (see September 11, 2001). [Chicago Sun-Times, 9/22/2001] It will also be reported that when Mohamed Atta takes a flight from Portland, Maine, to Boston on the morning of 9/11, his bags are not transferred to Flight 11 and remain in Boston. Later, airline uniforms are found inside his bags (see (7:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Boston Globe, 9/18/2001] Boston’s Logan International Airport has repeatedly been fined for failing to run background checks on its employees, and for many other serious violations. [CNN, 10/12/2001]