The passport in the ruins

Claim

The passport found in the ruins of the World Trade Center was planted⁰.

Background

A passport, belonging to Satam al-Suqami, one of the terrorists on bord Flight 11, was found moments before the World Trade Center 2 (South Tower) collapsed and given to a detective from the NYPD.

CNN reports the finding of the passport (video)¹.

Selected pages from the passport of Satam al Suqamis

[insert page=’11171′ display=’content’]

The circumstances under which the passport was found:

The passport was recovered by NYPD Detective Yuk H. Chin from a male passerby in a business suit, about 30 years old. The passerby left before being identified, while debris was falling from WTC 2. The tower collapsed shortly thereafter. The detective then gave the passport to the FBI on 9/11. See FBI report, interview of Detective Chin, Sept. 12, 2001.²

The claim indicates that it is quite implausible that the passport can still be intact after the destruction of Flight 11’s impact with the World Trade Center 1 (North Tower). It follows that it must have been planted by the secret conspiracy that the Truth Movement claims really was behind the terror attack on September 11. 2001.

“Evidence was also apparently planted. The passport of one of the hijackers on Flight 11 was allegedly found in the rubble, having survived the fire caused by the crash into the north tower and also whatever caused everything else in this building except the steel to be pulverized. As a story in the Guardian said, “the idea that [this] passport had escaped from that inferno unsinged would [test] the credulity of the staunchest supporter of the FBI’s crackdown on terrorism.”
David Ray Griffin⁰

Hijacker’s Passport and a Landing Gear Fragment Alone Survive Fiery Crash
According to ABC News and the Associated Press, the passport of hijacker Satam Al Suqami was found a few blocks from the WTC. The Guardian was skeptical: “The idea that Atta’s passport had escaped from that inferno unsinged [tests] the credulity of the staunchest supporter of the FBI’s crackdown on terrorism.” Note the passport did not belong to Atta, as is commonly claimed.

Satam Al Suqami was supposedly on Flight 11, the plane that hit the North Tower. In that collision, the building’s core absorbed almost the entire airplane, which hit the northeast wall nearly dead center.
WTC7NET⁰

“Is it realistic that a passport survives and is found on a street in NY, whereafter a citizen hands it over to a police officer? (What are the odds?).”
Rasmus Kristensen⁰

Facts

Many items were found from all four planes such as larger and smaller parts of the hulls, plane seats, machine parts, etc. Personal items were also found, such as wallets, rings, identity papers, credit cards, photographs, and drivers licences.

Examples from each plane:

Flight 11

“It is known that some debris from the aircraft travelled completely through the structure. For example, life jackets and portions of seats from the aircraft were found on the roof of the Bankers Trust building, located to the south of WTC2. Part of the landing gear from this aircraft was found at the corner of West and Rector streets, some five blocks south of the WTC complex.”³

“On September 11, 2002, one year Anniversary of the death of our son, we were informed that the Recovery team at Ground Zero have found the ATM Bank card of Waleed and that it will be mailed to us in Northridge. When we received it, we found it in good condition.

How could a plastic card survive the fire of the terrorist attack of the Black Tuesday on the USA?

I consider it as a sign from Waleed to his parents on the first Anniversary of his loss.”⁴

Flight 175

“Orange County, CA., Sept. 11 – Lisa Anne Frost was 22 and had just graduated from Boston University in May 2001 with two degrees and multiple academic and service honors. She had worked all summer in Boston before coming home, finally, to California to start her new life. The Rancho Santa Margarita woman was on United Flight 175 on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when it became the second plane to slam into the World Trade Center…

Her parents, Tom and Melanie Frost, have spent two years knowing they will never understand why.

A few days before the first anniversary of our daughter’s murder, we were notified that they had found a piece of her in the piles and piles of gritty rubble of the World Trade Center that had been hauled out to Staten Island. It was Lisa’s way, we believe, of telling us she wasn’t lost.

In February, the day of the Columbia tragedy, we got word they’d found her United Airlines Mileage Plus card. It was found very near where they’d found a piece of her right hip. We imagine that she used the card early on the morning of Sept. 11 to get on the plane and just stuck it in her back pocket, probably her right back pocket, instead of in her purse. They have found no other personal effects”.⁵

Flight 77

“During an interview earlier this week, Koch delicately handled eerie mementos of the crash found during cleanup: Whittington’s battered driver’s license. One granddaughters’ luggage tag. a burnt luggage tag and a wedding ring lie on a book dedicated to those lost in the events of Sept. 11, 2001. The wedding ring belonged to Ruth’s daughter and the luggage tag belonged to one her granddaughters. The Kochs plan to send the items to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington for inclusion in a 9/11 display. The Kochs have enough reminders without them.”⁶

Flight 93

“Around Thanksgiving, Jerry and Beatrice Guadagno of Ewing, N.J., received word that their son Richard’s credentials and badge from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had been found by the FBI at the crash site.

“It was practically intact,” Richard’s sister, Lori, said of the credentials, which were returned in their wallet. “It just looked like it wasn’t damaged or hadn’t gone through much of anything at all, which is so bizarre and ironic.

“Everything takes on an extra special meaning, especially when there’s so little that you have.”⁷

Photos (passport size) of suicide pilot Ziad Jarrah and parts of his visa were also found at the crash site of Flight 93^{8, 9, 10, 11}.

And, of course, body parts from all four planes (not shown here), which were later used to identify not just the hijackers but also passengers and crew members.

It is not at all impossible that a passport made it without being pulverized or burnt to cinders. On the contrary, it would be highly suspicious if everything was destroyed in a way that left no trace of the people on board the planes.

Odds

It is not possible to give odds of chaotic events. A chaotic event is characterized by disorder and unpredictability.

A criminal investigation does not generally deal with probabilities. The police does not give the odds that a person has been at a crime scene, so that the person would be arrested, should the percent be over a certain level: Either the police can place the person at the scene of the crime, or it cannot.

Regarding DNA evidence, it requires a match before a person can be charged. DNA evidence is used increasingly as far stronger evidence than, say, witness testimonies, which are ranked lowest of all evidence.

Whose passport was it?

The article referred to is from The Guardian and written by a columnist from the newspaper’s family section. The article is not the official view of the newspaper. Additionally, the columnist gets the identity wrong: It was not Mohammed Atta’s passport but Satam al-Suqami’s.

Logic

It is not necessary to cast suspicion on Satam al Suqami by planting his passport near the World Trade Center 1 and 2 right before the collapse of the World Trade Center 2, since his name was on the passenger manifest. When the FBI began their criminal investigation, they could identify him as a suspect based on this manifest. It would only make sense to plant the passport if he had not been on the manifest.

Do catastrophes destroy everything?

It speaks against a secret conspiracy that the numerous items found, both while the World Trade Center 1 and 2 were still standing and later during the rescue effort, are in such different states: Some are quite intact, others are more or less damaged, while others have been completely destroyed – something that characterizes all catastrophes.

If a secret conspiracy wanted to destroy all evidence, it would require a guaranteed total destruction of all items. This is impossible to do by means of 10-100 tons of explosives and top secret military-developed nanothermite that were placed in the World Trade Center 1, 2, and 7 prior to September 11, 2001, according to the Truth Movement. The explosions would destroy a lot but would also spread some over a wide area, where it would be found and thus expose the conspiracy.

Even in highly destructive catastrophes, it is possible for even vulnerable items to survive. When the space shuttle Columbia burned and disintegrated in 2003, debris was not only found over a huge area on the ground, but also items which, quite literally, had survived the catastrophe, namely small worms used in a scientific experiment when the space shuttle was in orbit. The worms were still alive when found, and even in such good condition that data from the experiment could be used¹².

Conclusion

The claim is therefore:

• False
• Undocumented
• Self-contradicting

Sources

0. 9/11: The Myth and the Reality, David Ray Griffin
   Crash-Proof Passport, 911Research.wtc7.net
   Rasmus Kristensen, email til redaktionen
1. CNN
2. 9/11 and Terrorist Travel, Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
3. FEMA 403: World Trade Center Building Performance Study, Chapter 2: WTC 1 and WTC 2, side 16
4. Waleed J. Iskandar, mindeside
5. MSNBC (dødt link)
6. Vivid memories, but is 9/11’s impact fading?, OnlineAthens, 11. september, 2004
7. Flight 93 victims’ effects to go back to families, Post-Gazette.com, 30. december, 2001
8. PA00103.2 Passport sized photo recovered from the United Airlines Flight 93 crash site, Prosecution Trial Exhibits, United States versus Zacarias Moussaoui – Criminal No. 01-455-A, United States District Court Eastern District of Virginia
9. PA00103.3 Passport sized photo recovered from the United Airlines Flight 93 crash site, Prosecution Trial Exhibits, United States versus Zacarias Moussaoui – Criminal No. 01-455-A, United States District Court Eastern District of Virginia
10. PA00105.08 Page 37 and part of U.S. Visa page from Ziad Jarrah’s Passport recovered at the United Airlines Flight 93 crash site, Prosecution Trial Exhibits, United States versus Zacarias Moussaoui – Criminal No. 01-455-A, United States District Court Eastern District of Virginia
11. PA00108 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia passport for Saeed A A A Al Ghamdi recovered from the United Airlines Flight 93 crash site, Prosecution Trial Exhibits, United States versus Zacarias Moussaoui – Criminal No. 01-455-A, United States District Court Eastern District of Virginia
12. Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, Recovery of debris, Wikipedia
    Space Shuttle Columbia Debris Recovery Enhanced With GIS, ESRI.com

Q & A