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  • 1 week ago
Like so many affected by the Sept 11, 2001 terror attacks, Michael Tuohey lives with unanswerable questions.

As an airline customer service agent, Tuohey helped two of the hijackers check into their flights at Portland International Jetport in Maine, the starting point of a journey that ended in American Airlines Flight 11 crashing into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

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Transcript
00:00Terror hits home.
00:04Link to Portland, gross.
00:25I didn't listen to my gut, and it turned out to be an awful thing, but it wasn't that I
00:31was right.
00:31It's just that it could have changed something.
01:06I saw these fellas come down the stairs, and they looked confused.
01:11And I said, can I help you guys?
01:13What are you looking for?
01:13And he says, we're on U.S. Airways.
01:18I said, where are you going?
01:19In Boston.
01:20I went, oh, God.
01:21He said, come over here.
01:22Because it was like 5.30, and I was leaving at 6.
01:26Even then, you had a time limit of like 30 minutes or more to check in.
01:32So I dragged him over to my station to check him in.
01:36And I said, give me your tickets.
01:37And I look, and I go, whoa.
01:40First class tickets.
01:42And Atta looks at the thing, and he looks at me, and he looks at me, and he says, they
01:46told me one-step check-in.
01:47And I said, oh, well, he knows the procedure.
01:51He knows that I'm supposed to give him his boarding card.
01:55I'm not going to give it to him, no.
01:57And I said, look, Mr. Atta, I says, you're in first class on American Airlines.
02:07As soon as you get to Boston, you go to the Admiral's Club.
02:10They'll set you up nice in the Admiral's Club, yeah?
02:14And he just looked at me.
02:15He says, they told me one-step check-in.
02:19And I just sit there and I said, uh-oh.
02:22He says, Mr. Atta, if you don't get upstairs real quick, you're going to miss your flight altogether.
02:29And they just, he said something, and the other guy was like a command, I guess.
02:34They whipped around and were off.
02:37And I'm going, oh, good.
02:39I don't think I wanted to deal with this guy anymore, you know?
02:43Of course, we had a TV in the back, and we go in and we're looking.
02:45You don't believe what you see.
02:47And then somebody says, that was American Airlines 11.
02:50And Diane says to me, Tui, didn't them guys that give you a bad time, didn't you put them on
02:56that flight?
02:57I says, yeah.
02:59I says, I did.
02:59Oh, my God.
03:00The poor guys, they're dead.
03:01And then it dawned on me, wait a minute.
03:04This guy looked like, I even thought, if anybody looks like a terrorist, he is a terrorist.
03:11That's passed through my mind earlier that day.
03:14My gut instinct was good, but there were laws against profiling people.
03:22And in a sense, they would have said, well, you're just profiling these people, and that's illegal.
03:27So, you know, I don't want to get into a pissing contest about that.
03:30You know, it's, my opinion is that I just, I didn't listen to my gut, and it turned out to
03:39be an awful thing.
03:40But it wasn't that I was right.
03:42It's just that I, it could have changed something.
03:46You know, not that it would have, but it could have.
03:50Who knows?
03:50How about it?
03:56How about it?
04:03You
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