Reply #29: HOW

[DulceDecorum]

did the airplane send the passenger manifest data to the airline?

"But the only credible, source for such information is the airline passenger list, and the only credible source for obtaining this information is the airline itself, or authorities and media to which the airline makes it available."
-- Gerard Holmgren

Re: “Aviation Security Screening Records” 68 Fed. Reg. 2,101
(January 15, 2003).
Long concerned about the diminution of privacy in the electronic age and the increased use of surveillance technologies by the government, the ACLU urges the Department of Transportation (DOT) to abandon its plan to establish a system of records known as “Aviation Security Screening Records” (ASSR). The Federal Register notice announcing DOT’s intent to establish a system of records under the Privacy Act (DOT notice) describes a database that would include digital dossiers on airline passengers who are not suspected of a crime or in any way shown to be linked to terrorism.
http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=11909&c=130#_ftnref3

Since the DOT is only now (January 15, 2003) seeking to establish these dossiers,
it is reasonable to assume
that the airlines were not routinely reporting this data
before and on September 11, 2001.

HOWEVER,
the airline have always known just which passengers had boarded the plane.
That is why we cannot understand what happened to Flight 11 and Flight 77.