On 10 July 2001 Kenneth Williams, an agent in the Phoenix office, wrote that he believed there was a coordinated effort by bin Laden to send students to the United States to attend civil aviation schools. He recommended a national survey of flight schools. [1]
The memo went to headquarters and two agents in New York. No managers at headquarters saw it before 11 September, and New York took no action. Williams told investigators he was not warning about suicide pilots; he was thinking of a Pan Am 103-style bombing. The Commission said that had it been acted on promptly, “we do not believe it would have uncovered the plot,” though it might have made the FBI take Moussaoui more seriously. [2]
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