The passports that survived

According to the Commission’s travel monograph, the passport of Satam al Suqami, one of the Flight 11 hijackers, was recovered by NYPD Detective Yuk H. Chin from a man in a business suit, about 30 years old. The man left before he could be identified, while debris was falling from the South Tower; the tower collapsed shortly afterward. [1]

Commission staff later found that the passport Suqami used for his visa had fraudulent travel stamps associated with al Qaeda. [2] Skeptics say the story is too convenient, and the unidentified passerby leaves it resting on one detective’s report. Paper, ID cards and other light items were thrown from the impact zones in large quantities.

The FBI agent who led the Flight 93 site said investigators were “shocked at the number of items” recovered there, including the hijackers’ passports, notes they had written for themselves and a knife. [1] Exhibits at the Moussaoui trial include a page from Ziad Jarrah’s passport with part of his US visa, found at the Flight 93 site, and identification cards from the Pentagon. [2]

The hijackers were identified mainly by other means: the passenger lists, the airline and phone records, their cars and luggage, and the cockpit recorder of Flight 93. Luggage recovered at Logan Airport held a four-page handwritten letter in Arabic, also in evidence at the trial. [2][3]