- TAMPA -- Two days after the
Sept. 11 attacks, with most of the nation's air traffic still grounded,
a small jet landed at Tampa International Airport, picked up three young
Saudi men and left.
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- The men, one of them thought to be a member of the Saudi
royal family, were accompanied by a former FBI agent and a former Tampa
police officer on the flight to Lexington, Ky.
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- The Saudis then took another flight out of the country.
The two ex-officers returned to TIA a few hours later on the same plane.
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- For nearly three years, White House, aviation and law
enforcement officials have insisted the flight never took place and have
denied published reports and widespread Internet speculation about its
purpose.
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- But now, at the request of the National Commission on
Terrorist Attacks, TIA officials have confirmed that the flight did take
place and have supplied details.
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- The odyssey of the small LearJet 35 is part of a larger
controversy over the hasty exodus from the United States in the days immediately
after 9/11 of members of the Saudi royal family and relatives of Osama
bin Laden.
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- The terrorism panel, better known as the 9/11 Commission,
said in April that it knew of six chartered flights with 142 people aboard,
mostly Saudis, that left the United States between Sept. 14 and 24, 2001.
But it has said nothing about the Tampa flight.
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- The commission's general counsel, Daniel Marcus, asked
TIA in a letter dated May 25 for any information about "a chartered
flight with six people, including a Saudi prince, that flew from Tampa,
Florida on or about Sept. 13, 2001." He asked for the information
no later than June 8.
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- TIA officials said they sent their reply on Monday.
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- The airport used aircraft tracking equipment normally
assigned to a noise abatement program to determine the identity of all
aircraft entering TIA airspace on Sept. 13, and found four records for
the LearJet 35.
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- The plane first entered the airspace from the south,
possibly from the Fort Lauderdale area, sometime after 3 p.m. and landed
for the first time at 3:34 p.m. It took off at 4:37 p.m., headed north.
It returned to Tampa at 8:23 p.m. and took off again at 8:48 p.m., headed
south.
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- Author Craig Unger, who first disclosed the possibility
of a post-9/11 Saudi airlift in his book House of Bush, House of Saud,
said in an interview that he believes the jet came to Tampa a second time
to drop off two former law enforcement agents from Tampa who accompanied
three young Saudis to Lexington for security purposes.
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- The Saudis asked the Tampa Police Department to escort
the flight, but the department handed off the assignment to Dan Grossi,
a former member of the force, Unger said. Grossi recruited Manuel Perez,
a retired FBI agent, to accompany him. Both described the flight to Unger
as somewhat surreal.
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- "They got the approval somewhere," Perez is
quoted as telling Unger. "It must have come from the highest levels
of government."
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- While there is no manifest for those aboard the Lear
flight to Kentucky, Unger says the foreign nationals left Lexington for
London aboard a Boeing 727. That manifest lists eight Saudis, two Sudan
nationals, one Tunisian, one Philippine citizen, one Egyptian and two British
subjects.
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- Of those, three listed residences on Normandy Trace Drive
in Tampa, and all of them held Florida drivers' licenses. They are Ahmad
Al Hazmi, then 19, Fahad Al Zeid, then 20, and Talal M. Al Mejrad, then
18, all male Saudis.
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- It is not known which, if any, is a Saudi prince.
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- Perez, the former FBI agent on the flight, could not
be located this week, and Grossi declined to talk about the experience.
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- "I'm over it," he said in a telephone interview.
"The White House, the FAA and the FBI all said the flight didn't happen.
Those are three agencies that are way over my head, and that's why I'm
done talking about it."
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- Grossi did say that Unger's account of his participation
in the flight is accurate.
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- The FAA is still not talking about the flights, referring
all questions to the FBI, which isn't answering anything, either. Nor is
the 9/11 Commission.
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- Unger's book criticizes the Bush administration for allowing
so many Saudis, including the relatives of bin Laden, to leave the country
without being questioned thoroughly about the terrorist attacks.
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- Fifteen of the 19 men who hijacked four airlines on Sept.
11 were Saudi, as is bin Laden.
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- The 9/11 Commission, which has said the flights out of
the United States were handled appropriately by the FBI, appears concerned
with the handling of the Tampa flight.
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- "What information, if any, do you have about the
screening by law enforcement personnel - including law enforcement personnel
affiliated with the airport facility - of individuals on this flight?"
the commission asked TIA.
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- The TIA Police Department said a check of its records
indicated no member of its force screened the Lear's passengers.
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- Despite evidence that the flight occurred, several new
questions have arisen.
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- Raytheon Aircraft is the only facility at TIA that services
general aviation, which includes charter flights. When appropriate, Raytheon
collects landing fees from those aircraft for TIA and reports to TIA on
the flights.
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- According to airport records, Raytheon collected landing
fees from only two aircraft on Sept. 13, one of them a Lear 35. But according
to the record, the registration on the Lear is 505RP, a tail number which,
according to the latest federal records, is assigned to a Cessna Citation
based in Kalamazoo, Mich., and Oskar Rene Poch.
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- Poch confirmed Tuesday that he owns a Citation with that
tail number and did before the terrorist attacks.
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- "Somebody must have gotten the registration number
wrong in Tampa," he said.
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- TIA spokeswoman Brenda Geoghagan said it is believed
the Lear's Sept. 13 journey began in Fort Lauderdale, possibly at a charter
company called Hop-a-Jet Inc. The fact that the four trips in and out of
Tampa all carried the flight designation "HPJ32" lends support
to that idea.
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- But an official of Hop-a-Jet who wouldn't identify himself
said the company does not own an aircraft with the registration number
505RP. Furthermore, he said, if that tail number is assigned to a Cessna
Citation, the company doesn't own any Citations, either.
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- Most of the aircraft allowed to fly in U.S. airspace
on Sept. 13 were empty airliners being ferried from the airports where
they made quick landings on Sept. 11. The reopening of the airspace included
paid charter flights, but not private, nonrevenue flights.
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- "Whether such a (LearJet) flight would have been
legal hinges on whether somebody paid for it," said FAA spokesman
William Shumann. "That's the key."
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- - Times researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this
report.
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- © Copyright 2002-2004 St. Petersburg Times. All
rights reserved.
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