An airline ticket agent who checked in two of the 9/11 hijackers admits he ‘didn’t listen to his gut’ despite their suspicious behavior ahead of the attacks.
Michael Tuohey was working at Portland International Jetport in Maine on the morning of September 11, 2001, when he helped al-Qaeda terrorists Mohamed Atta and Abdul Aziz al Omari get to their connecting flight in Boston.
The terrorists made their flight to Boston in the nick of time, Tuohey said, before they hijacked the next aircraft and flew the jet into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
Tuohey said he has been left haunted by the thought that he could have prevented the attacks, as he believed the men were suspicious but he did not stop them.
‘If anyone looked like a terrorist, he was a terrorist,’ he said of Atta.
‘My gut instinct was good, but there were laws, there were laws against profiling people,’ the ticket agent, 80, told RTE.
‘It’s just that it could have changed something. Not that it would have, but it could have. Who knows?… I didn’t listen to my gut. And it turned out to be an awful thing.’
Tuohey said he encountered the two men struggling to find their way through the Maine airport, as they had arrived just half an hour before their flight.
‘They looked confused,’ he recalled, saying he helped the men through their check-in procedure to make the connecting flight.
Michael Tuohey, 80, an airline ticket agent who checked in two of the 9/11 hijackers, admits he ‘didn’t listen to his gut’ when he didn’t stop them despite their suspicious behavior ahead of the attacks
Tuohey recalled a rude interaction with chief hijacker Mohamed Atta (left) and Abdul Aziz al Omari (right), but he helped them make their connecting flight before the hijackings
The ticket agent said he was surprised to see the two men had purchased first class seats, and said Atta became frustrated with him when he was slowly checking his flight credentials.
He recalled Atta barking at him, ‘They told me it would be a one-step check in’, so Tuohey gave him his boarding pass and sent him on his way.
Tuohey said he told Atta that because he had a first class ticket, he should head to the Admiral Lounge when he got to Boston, where they would ‘set him up’ with a more comfortable experience.
He said Atta responded to his friendly suggestion by bluntly repeating, ‘They told me it would be one-step check in.’
This rude remark caught Tuohey off-guard, he said, and he then warned the terrorist: ‘Mr Atta, if you don’t get upstairs real quick, you’re going to miss your flight altogether.’
He said Atta then gave an ‘order’ to al Omari, and the two men hastily picked up their belongings and headed for their flight.
Tuohey said he was glad to see the men walk away because of their rude encounter, as he ‘didn’t want to deal with this guy anymore.’
Tuohey, seen during his time working at Portland International Jetport in Maine, said he has been left haunted by the thought that he could have prevented the attacks
When Tuohey saw the 9/11 attacks unfolding on the news, he said it quickly dawned on him that he may have encountered the hijackers that day
Some time later, Tuohey said he saw the 9/11 attacks unfolding on the news, and a colleague reminded him that he had helped passengers get onto the flight to Boston.
‘Oh my god, the poor guys, they’re dead,’ Tuohey recalled thinking, unaware at the time that the Atta and al Omari could have been responsible.
‘And then it dawned on me, wait a minute… if anyone looked like a terrorist, he is a terrorist,’ he said.
‘That passed through my mind earlier that day.’
Tuohey said even though he had his suspicions about Atta, he understood ‘there are laws against profiling people’, and he believed at the time he would have been accused of racial profiling.
‘I don’t want to get into a pissing contest about that,’ he said. ‘My opinion is, I didn’t listen to my gut, and it turned out to be an awful thing.
‘It wasn’t that I was right, it’s just that it could have changed something… I followed all the guidelines, I did my job, and 3,000 people ended up paying with their lives.’
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