Red, you need to reread what Horatius pointed out in the response to the FOIA request:
Plaintiff's original FOIA request sought "documentation pertaining to any formally and positively identified debris" from the aircraft used in the September 11th attacks. In response to this request, RIDS personnel at FBIHQ understood that any potentially responsive records would have been compiled for law enforcement purposes and would be located in a pending file because of an ongoing law enforcement investigation. RIDS personnel therefore determined that any records would be withheld in their entirety pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(A).
It is incorrect to state that there is no positive identification. Between the word from the airlines, the post-event ATC record analysis, and whatever evidence the FBI is referring to in their response, there is indeed verification of the flights identity. The part of it that the FBI possesses is simply not being released.
Study of actions taken by the various agencies post crash indicated that there was indeed no doubt about the identity of the aircraft; I point to the book "Firefight" as an example of this. The investigative agencies did indeed already know the identities of the aircraft. This doesn't mean that they merely took on faith those identities, however. In the immediate aftermath of the crash, the information from the ATC's and airlines was sufficient verification; recall the ATC's losing communication with all the aircraft. And recall also from post event reconstruction of the radar data that they identified 3 of the 4 aircraft by the fact they turned off their transponders. Those two things right there indicate that the aircraft were taken off course, and as those were determined to be the only aircraft that were missing - they never reached their original destinations - that is a strong indication that they were indeed involved. Then consider the results of further investigation, results we're all aready aware of: For example, the DNA identification from Flight 77. In that specific case, that further confirmed AA77's identity by confirming the presence of the passengers. Or the recovery of personal effects from UAL 175 or AA 11 in New York. Now, take all that with the rest of the evidence - the airphone and cellphone calls, for example - as well as the recovery of debris consistent with the hijacked planes at each location. All of that as a whole establishes the identity of the jets.
Independent lines of evidence all converge to support each other. Take the airphone/cellphone calls
and the ATC radar data
and the loss of communication
and the DNA and personal effects identification
and the debris recovered
and the witness statements
and the failure of any of the 4 aircraft to reach their destinations... oh, I forgot to mention the FDR's from two of the 4 aircraft; have I forgotten anything else?... and you have identification of the aircraft. This isn't unsupported conjecture; the identification is based on all those converging lines of evidence.
This is also not new news. I'm disappointed that
you are constructing your posts to imply that there was no positive identification of the aircraft. That mistake is understandable by someone new to the forum, but you've seen all these arguments before many times over. You're probably able to state them yourself by this point, you've been here long enough. So why are you putting things that way? You know damn well it's not merely faith that these identifications are based on, but all the lines of evidence I mentioned above.
