01-09-2016, 01:25 AM
My guess is that to avoid suspicion of anything unusual, ticket sales for the flights remained open as usual, sweeping up a bunch of unlucky passengers that would fit the narrative. There may have been general vetting of those random passengers to avoid anything problematic. Certain travellers (i.e possibly the heavy tech / miitary passenger list on United 93(?)) were deliberately booked on the flights, either for reasons we don't know, or simply to eliminate inconvenient people permanently.
A few people might have fallen afoul of the random ticket sales, but people with some say in the matter chose to steer them out of harm's way. Maybe skip that flight Mr Rushdie, perhaps work on your latest book for another day. This would be similar to the lucky few at the Pentagon who (reportedly) were told to avoid the impact area just prior to the attack there - I believe the Shoestring blog cites a couple of these.
One hole in my theory - the Shoestring 911 blog also has an article somewhere that lists all the celebrities and media figures that narrowly avoided or cancelled their flights on 9/11. Even if you remove the few who were likely making those claims for bogus reasons, the list is ridiculously long. So, there may have been another unknown purpose to these warnings and narrow avoidances.
The story below was interesting. A retired Australian Navy commander meets Bush and Aussie PM John Howard for an awards ceremony. He books a ticket on Flight 77. Howard then invites the guy to visit Arlington with him on September 11th instead. The invitation causes the retiree's ticket to be moved, and he survives the day.
Howard, I've read, was in Washington that week on the advice of Frank Lowy, the Australian-Israeli businessman who occasionally 'advised Howard on matters of foreign policy' (and I don't have the source for that quote handy, but Lowy is treated with massive deference by local politicians). Lowy's Westfield Americas company took over joint control of the WTC with Larry Silverstein's Silverstein Properties on July 24th, 2001.
--Edited to add, I doubt Howard knew anything at all as to what was coming, but Howard has made a career out of taken advice from the rich and powerful and following their instructions to the letter. The Navy retiree seems like a nice guy - possibly one of Howard's security circle decided to suggest the Arlington diversion to one of his advisors. Some nice publicity for you Prime Minister, and you can both enjoy the afternoon.
[URL="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-07/mackenzie-gregory-on-september-11/2874622"]http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-07/mackenzie-gregory-on-september-11/2874622
[/URL]
A few people might have fallen afoul of the random ticket sales, but people with some say in the matter chose to steer them out of harm's way. Maybe skip that flight Mr Rushdie, perhaps work on your latest book for another day. This would be similar to the lucky few at the Pentagon who (reportedly) were told to avoid the impact area just prior to the attack there - I believe the Shoestring blog cites a couple of these.
One hole in my theory - the Shoestring 911 blog also has an article somewhere that lists all the celebrities and media figures that narrowly avoided or cancelled their flights on 9/11. Even if you remove the few who were likely making those claims for bogus reasons, the list is ridiculously long. So, there may have been another unknown purpose to these warnings and narrow avoidances.
The story below was interesting. A retired Australian Navy commander meets Bush and Aussie PM John Howard for an awards ceremony. He books a ticket on Flight 77. Howard then invites the guy to visit Arlington with him on September 11th instead. The invitation causes the retiree's ticket to be moved, and he survives the day.
Howard, I've read, was in Washington that week on the advice of Frank Lowy, the Australian-Israeli businessman who occasionally 'advised Howard on matters of foreign policy' (and I don't have the source for that quote handy, but Lowy is treated with massive deference by local politicians). Lowy's Westfield Americas company took over joint control of the WTC with Larry Silverstein's Silverstein Properties on July 24th, 2001.
--Edited to add, I doubt Howard knew anything at all as to what was coming, but Howard has made a career out of taken advice from the rich and powerful and following their instructions to the letter. The Navy retiree seems like a nice guy - possibly one of Howard's security circle decided to suggest the Arlington diversion to one of his advisors. Some nice publicity for you Prime Minister, and you can both enjoy the afternoon.
[URL="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-07/mackenzie-gregory-on-september-11/2874622"]http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-07/mackenzie-gregory-on-september-11/2874622
[/URL]