Reply #63: I would not describe that as a bandana

[Ferry Fey]

We've got a red bandana...........that good enough!

Er, no. Take a look at that. Is it even a bandana? Not what I'd call a bandana, unless some of you can give me some sartorial nuances I'm unaware of. And if not, we've got some lying or incompentence to account for on the part of those presenting the "evidence" labeled PA00111 01-455-A (ID).

The PA00111 refers to Berwick County, according to the Uniform Crime Reporting Program ORI-Agency Look-up Table. So I guess it's 01-455-A, if you want to refer to it by name, though it might answer to Big Red, I suppose.

I just grabbed a couple of bandanas from around my house. One that was probably one of those two for a couple of bucks or whatever at Walmart, another had a tag from the dollar store. They're the fold up to put around your brow to keep the sweat from pouring into your eyes kind, the kind you'd give your dog as a hip collar, or that you might wear around your neck for a jaunty classic country look.

The Oxford English Dictionary gives examples of the term going back to the 18th century, says it's related to the Hindustani term "bandhnu ‘a mode of dyeing in which the cloth is tied in different places, to prevent the parts from receiving the dye.’" We know it to generally be a square of bright colored cloth with a contrasting print (often of floral or paisley motif) mostly around the outside. It's usually about 21 inches at a side, about 31 inches most on the diagonal, which is the way you'd usually fold it for wearing as a band. To do that you'd first bring opposing corners together to make a triangle, bring those ppoints down to meet the center of the longest diagonal fold. You'd then fold in half, then in half again, giving you a band about 2 inches wide, and 31 inches long, 16 layers of cloth thick. Had you folded it in thirds you'd end up with a band 3 inches wide, and only 12 layers thick.

Take your standard bandana, fold it to the usual thickness. Guaranteed you cannot get it to fold like the one in the evidence bag above. It simply isn't long enough.

Take a closer look at it. http://www.rcfp.org/moussaoui /jpg/PA00111-1.jpg (I just broke that URL into two parts, for some reason posting it in the message here was putting the full hi-res image into the thread and messing with the formatting. Just remove the spaces before the jpg section and paste all of it into your browser)

This is no 12 layer or 16 layer folded bandana. It's quite obviously just two layers of cloth, a single long rectangle that was folded and sewn in a seam down the side, then turned inside out. While we don't get a definitive look at the ends,we do seem to see part of an end peeking up just up around the bottom edge of the white label.

Odd thing is, it's not finished properly. You see all those threads running like a series of M's and W's along the top edge there? That's called an interlock stitch. It's done on a special machine that simultaneously trims the edge and binds it with that series of stitches so the fabric is less likely to fray.
It's probably that way on the inside of the seam we see running along the piece -- but you'd not generally want it to be seen coming out at the end like that.

I took a two inch wide sash I have, and tried to roughly fold it in the manner the fabric is folded in the alleged "bandana" exhibit. It used up about 55 inches to get it in that position, with those folds. More like a sash, to be worn around the waist or hips.

Who reported a red sash? From commentary about the "dramatized reconstruction" "Flight 93 -- Countdown to Terror," it seems that Jeremy Glick allegedly said, "There’s three of them, Arab looking, possibly Iranian. They’ve got red headbands on, one of them is standing in the aisle wearing a red sash and bag round his waist. Says there’s a bomb in it.” I don't know what specific information this is based on, if any.

In Lisa Beamer's book "Let's Roll," GTE AirPhone supervisor Lisa Jefferson paraphrases that Todd Beamer told her, ""He told me that three people had taken over the plane," said Lisa, "two with knives and one with a bomb strapped around his waist with a red belt."
http://www.adventistreview.org/2002-1538/story5.html

So Lisa Jefferson refers to it as a red belt, the movie calls it a red sash. If you were going to strap a bomb to your waist, even a fake one, would you use a kind of lightweight cotton/poly (I'm going to assume it was a blend because of its general wrinkle-free appearance) girly kind of sash?

But all speculation aside, the most important factor is this: there is no sign that ANYONE has worn this while flight 93 was in flight, not to tie around a brow, not to tie around a waist to hold a pound or two of bomb.

There is no sign of a knot having been tied in it. Not at all.