"Out, out, damn spot!"
Jean Heller, St. Petersburg Times: For nearly three
years, White House, aviation and law enforcement
officials have insisted the flight never took place
and have denied published reports and widespread
Internet speculation about its purpose. But now, at
the request of the National Commission on Terrorist
Attacks, TIA officials have confirmed that the flight
did take place and have supplied details.
The odyssey of the small LearJet 35 is part of a
larger controversy over the hasty exodus from the
United States in the days immediately after 9/11 of
members of the Saudi royal family and relatives of
Osama bin Laden.
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://sptimes.com/2004/06/09/Tampabay/TIA_now_verifies_flig.shtml
TIA now verifies flight of Saudis: The government has long denied that two days after the 9/11 attacks, the three were allowed to fly.
By JEAN HELLER, Times Staff Writer
Published June 9, 2004
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, better
known as the 9/11 Commission, sent a list of questions
to Tampa International Airport. It appears concerned
with the handling of the Tampa flight.
TAMPA - Two days after the Sept. 11 attacks, with most
of the nation's air traffic still grounded, a small
jet landed at Tampa International Airport, picked up
three young Saudi men and left.
The men, one of them thought to be a member of the
Saudi royal family, were accompanied by a former FBI
agent and a former Tampa police officer on the flight
to Lexington, Ky.
The Saudis then took another flight out of the
country. The two ex-officers returned to TIA a few
hours later on the same plane.
For nearly three years, White House, aviation and law
enforcement officials have insisted the flight never
took place and have denied published reports and
widespread Internet speculation about its purpose.
But now, at the request of the National Commission on
Terrorist Attacks, TIA officials have confirmed that
the flight did take place and have supplied details.
The odyssey of the small LearJet 35 is part of a
larger controversy over the hasty exodus from the
United States in the days immediately after 9/11 of
members of the Saudi royal family and relatives of
Osama bin Laden.
The terrorism panel, better known as the 9/11
Commission, said in April that it knew of six
chartered flights with 142 people aboard, mostly
Saudis, that left the United States between Sept. 14
and 24, 2001. But it has said nothing about the Tampa
flight.
The commission's general counsel, Daniel Marcus, asked
TIA in a letter dated May 25 for any information about
"a chartered flight with six people, including a Saudi
prince, that flew from Tampa, Florida on or about
Sept. 13, 2001." He asked for the information no later
than June 8.
TIA officials said they sent their reply on Monday.
The airport used aircraft tracking equipment normally
assigned to a noise abatement program to determine the
identity of all aircraft entering TIA airspace on
Sept. 13, and found four records for the LearJet 35.
The plane first entered the airspace from the south,
possibly from the Fort Lauderdale area, sometime after
3 p.m. and landed for the first time at 3:34 p.m. It
took off at 4:37 p.m., headed north. It returned to
Tampa at 8:23 p.m. and took off again at 8:48 p.m.,
headed south.
Author Craig Unger, who first disclosed the
possibility of a post-9/11 Saudi airlift in his book
House of Bush, House of Saud, said in an interview
that he believes the jet came to Tampa a second time
to drop off two former law enforcement agents from
Tampa who accompanied three young Saudis to Lexington
for security purposes.
The Saudis asked the Tampa Police Department to escort
the flight, but the department handed off the
assignment to Dan Grossi, a former member of the
force, Unger said. Grossi recruited Manuel Perez, a
retired FBI agent, to accompany him. Both described
the flight to Unger as somewhat surreal.
"They got the approval somewhere," Perez is quoted as
telling Unger. "It must have come from the highest
levels of government."
While there is no manifest for those aboard the Lear
flight to Kentucky, Unger says the foreign nationals
left Lexington for London aboard a Boeing 727. That
manifest lists eight Saudis, two Sudan nationals, one
Tunisian, one Philippine citizen, one Egyptian and two
British subjects.
Of those, three listed residences on Normandy Trace
Drive in Tampa, and all of them held Florida drivers'
licenses. They are Ahmad Al Hazmi, then 19, Fahad Al
Zeid, then 20, and Talal M. Al Mejrad, then 18, all
male Saudis.
It is not known which, if any, is a Saudi prince.
Perez, the former FBI agent on the flight, could not
be located this week, and Grossi declined to talk
about the experience.
"I'm over it," he said in a telephone interview. "The
White House, the FAA and the FBI all said the flight
didn't happen. Those are three agencies that are way
over my head, and that's why I'm done talking about
it."
Grossi did say that Unger's account of his
participation in the flight is accurate.
The FAA is still not talking about the flights,
referring all questions to the FBI, which isn't
answering anything, either. Nor is the 9/11
Commission.
Unger's book criticizes the Bush administration for
allowing so many Saudis, including the relatives of
bin Laden, to leave the country without being
questioned thoroughly about the terrorist attacks.
Fifteen of the 19 men who hijacked four airlines on
Sept. 11 were Saudi, as is bin Laden.
The 9/11 Commission, which has said the flights out of
the United States were handled appropriately by the
FBI, appears concerned with the handling of the Tampa
flight.
"What information, if any, do you have about the
screening by law enforcement personnel - including law
enforcement personnel affiliated with the airport
facility - of individuals on this flight?" the
commission asked TIA.
The TIA Police Department said a check of its records
indicated no member of its force screened the Lear's
passengers.
Despite evidence that the flight occurred, several new
questions have arisen.
Raytheon Aircraft is the only facility at TIA that
services general aviation, which includes charter
flights. When appropriate, Raytheon collects landing
fees from those aircraft for TIA and reports to TIA on
the flights.
According to airport records, Raytheon collected
landing fees from only two aircraft on Sept. 13, one
of them a Lear 35. But according to the record, the
registration on the Lear is 505RP, a tail number
which, according to the latest federal records, is
assigned to a Cessna Citation based in Kalamazoo,
Mich., and Oskar Rene Poch.
Poch confirmed Tuesday that he owns a Citation with
that tail number and did before the terrorist attacks.
"Somebody must have gotten the registration number
wrong in Tampa," he said.
TIA spokeswoman Brenda Geoghagan said it is believed
the Lear's Sept. 13 journey began in Fort Lauderdale,
possibly at a charter company called Hop-a-Jet Inc.
The fact that the four trips in and out of Tampa all
carried the flight designation "HPJ32" lends support
to that idea.
But an official of Hop-a-Jet who wouldn't identify
himself said the company does not own an aircraft with
the registration number 505RP. Furthermore, he said,
if that tail number is assigned to a Cessna Citation,
the company doesn't own any Citations, either.
Most of the aircraft allowed to fly in U.S. airspace
on Sept. 13 were empty airliners being ferried from
the airports where they made quick landings on Sept.
11. The reopening of the airspace included paid
charter flights, but not private, nonrevenue flights.
"Whether such a (LearJet) flight would have been legal
hinges on whether somebody paid for it," said FAA
spokesman William Shumann. "That's the key."
- Times researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this
report.
[Last modified June 9, 2004, 01:00:39]
Posted by richard at June 10, 2004 01:26 PM