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September 11, 2006FORT WORTH, Texas -- American Airlines today issued the following statement regarding the ABC-TV program The Path to 9/11:
"The Disney/ABC television program, The Path to 9/11, which began airing last night, is inaccurate and irresponsible in its portrayal of the airport check-in events that occurred on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
"A factual description of those events can be found in the official government edition of the 9/11 Commission Report and supporting documents.
"This misrepresentation of facts dishonors the memory of innocent American Airlines employees and all those who lost their lives as a result of the tragic events of 9/11."
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American VP Roger Frizzell also sent an email to all concerned AA flyers:
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I think it is important for you to know that ABC had factual errors in its dramatization, and we are looking at possible legal actions as a result. According to the 9-11 Commission report, it was not American Airlines, nor was it even the right airport that was depicted. In reality, it was another airline, flying out of Maine. Please know this was a tragic incident in our company's history and we hope you will be sympathetic to our employees and our airline on this day especially.Again, we are outraged by this situation, and we alerted ABC about its gross error. It is very unfortunate.
Roger Frizzell
Vice President, Corporate Communications & Advertising
American Airlines
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The scene the AA press release and email identifies, shows American Airlines' check-in people at Logan letting Mohammad Atta board the flight in spite of a warning coming up on the screen, and worse yet, the scene depicts an American check-in supervisor ignoring the concerns of another staffer about the warning. It never happened! That scene appears in the first half of the movie, and again in the second half of the movie.
Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism czar under Presidents Clinton and Bush, and current ABC News consultant, said of the movie, "Although I am not one to easily believe in conspiracy theories and have spent a great deal of time debunking them, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the errors in this screen play are more than the result of dramatization and time compression. There is throughout the screenplay a consistent bias and distortion seeking to portray senior Clinton Administration officials as holding back the hard charging CIA, FBI, and military officers who would otherwise have prevented 9-11. The exact opposite is true."
In a letter to Disney CEO, Robert Iger, that Bruce Lindsey, Clinton Foundation CEO, and Douglas J. Band, counselor, sent after the movie aired, they say in part, "Having now seen the first night of this fiction, it is clear that the edits made to the film did not address the factual errors that we brought to your attention. 'The Path to 9/11' flagrantly ignored the facts as reported by the 9/11 Commission and invented its own version of history. The result, in our judgment, is irreparable damage to the Commission's work. More importantly, it is a disservice to the American people.
"That the film directly contradicts the findings of the 9/11 Commission is troubling. That it defames dedicated public officials is tragic. But the fact that it misleads millions of people about the most tragic and consequential event in recent history is disgraceful."
