9/11 airline worker who checked in two hijackers revealed one reason he didn't stop them
The airline worker who checked in two hijackers for the American Airlines Flight 11 on 9/11 has opened up about the reason he didn't stop them, despite his 'gut instinct'.
Michael Tuohey was working at Portland International Jetport in Maine, when the devastating events of September 11, 2001, unfolded.
Just hours before the tragedy, however, the airline customer service agent had an unexpected encounter that would take on an entirely different meaning following the horrifying 9/11 attacks.
Mohammad Atta and Abdul Aziz al Omari, the terrorists who would go on to hijack American Airlines Flight 11 and crash it into the World Trade Center’s North Tower, arrived just 30 minutes before their connecting flight to Boston was due to depart.
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Tuohey recalled 'getting a vibe' from the older of the two passengers that 'he didn't like being there'.
The customer service worker also noted that Atta had repeatedly stressed that it was a 'one-step check-in', and had given Omari an 'order' to hurry up.
And despite claiming to have had a 'gut instinct' about the hijackers, there was one reason he didn't stop them boarding the plane.
Speaking with Reuters, he said: "My gut instinct was good but there were laws, there were laws against profiling people."
He added: "I didn't listen to my gut. And it turned out to be an awful thing. But it wasn't that I was right. It's just that it could have changed something.
"Not that it would have, but it could have. Who knows?"
But as Tuohey watched the tragedy unfold on a television at work, he admitted that he didn't immediately connect the dots.
Before discovering that the two men he had checked in were actually behind the horrifying crashes, he noted: "I said 'oh my God, the poor guys, their dead.' That's what I'm thinking, 'the poor guys are dead.'"
"And then it dawned on me," he added, "Wait a minute, this guy looked like...I even thought if anybody looks like a terrorist, he is a terrorist.
"That passed through my mind, earlier that day."
Tuohey, who is now 80 and retired, noted that he still suffers with the guilt of knowing he may have be able to stop the two men to this day.
Flight 11 was scheduled to fly from Boston to Los Angeles, after Atta and al-Omari had taken a connecting flight from Portland to Boston, where they were seated in business class, positioning themselves closer to the cockpit.
Mia Williams