Reply #13: Nobody really cares whether the numbers add up nicely or not

[Kevin Fenton]

So I don't think that the passenger numbers being thrown out of whack is a big deal.

Clearly, some passengers were not identified at the start because their relatives didn't want them to be. Waleed Iskandar is one and the reason seems to be that he had a Muslim-sounding name (although the family were actually Lebanese Catholics). I would not be at all surprised if a Muslim family decided to keep their relative's name off the official list - just imagine the trouble and harassment they would get.

Judging by the discussion in the author's note on page xv of Among the Heroes by Jere Longman there were 38 passengers on United 93 (the figure originally reported and the one given by a flight attendant), but one of their families didn't want to be named, so he left that passenger out. It was later claimed that Marion Britton (in coach) had bought two tickets.

Picture of Marion Britton:


Longman says that he uses the figure of 37 passengers "in the interest of a coherent narrative", not because it was right.

Also, there was a report in Time of two muslim brothers checking in for American 77. Time thought these were the Al Hazmis, although the match between the description in Time and that in the 9/11 CR is really not very good. You can find a discussion of this from a different point of view here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x74547
If you ask me, these could just be a couple of unfortunate muslims who were victims that day.

I don't think it's a big deal. The DNA work done so far proves nothing either way.