I was first made aware of Lynn Marie Florence Howland's interview after reading an article by Woody Box, a well known blogger during the first years after 9/11. (https://911woodybox.blogspot.com/2011/04/pilots-strange-encounter-with-atta-at.html)
At first glance there seems to be nothing wrong with the testimony, what she says sounds and looks credible, convincing and substantiated, not least because it comes from a pilot, pilots in general being highly thought of and well respected.
Salvatore P. Misuraca, a ramp service manager for American Airlines who said the aircraft came into Logan at approximately 6:06am:
(Source: 14094215-T7-B17-FBI-302s-of-interest-Flight-11)
All three afore mentioned witnesses put flight AA198'a arrival time between 6:00am-6:15am and not 7:00am which is Howland's claim.
(Source: BTS)
Lynn Howland was the American Airlines First Officer who together with Captain Douglas Balmain had brought in the plane that was going to fly AA11 to Los Angeles on September 11.Their flight was AA198, San Francisco to Boston, a "turn around flight", meaning the plane would be serviced and readied to depart soon after.
On the 12th of October 2011 (date of transcription October 13), Lynn met with an FBI interviewing agent at a Starbucks cafe near her home, and this is what she had to say:
(Source: 14094195-T7-B11-FBI-302s-Cockpit-and-American-and-Hijacker-Fdr-FBI-302-S-Entire-Contents)
So although it all starts off well, things become a bit more complicated once you start getting into the details.
First and foremost, the times. Why on earth would Howland give the times in EST when from the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday of November the US is on Daylight Saving Time? September 11th and October 12th, the day Howland gives the interview fall well within DST timeframe, so there is no reason why there should be confusion over the matter. It could be argued here that it wasn't her but the interviewing agent that wrote down EST instead of EDT, but that couldn't have happeded, as it was Howland herself who supposedly wrote everything down on a piece of paper so she wouldn't forget it and then handed that piece of paper to the agent.
Eastern Daylight Time is one hour ahead of Eastern Standard Time, so if we attempt to turn the EST times given by Howland into EDT, we come up with the following: landing time for flight 198: 7:50am and time of arrival at the gate: 8:00am.
Both times are way off, as AA11 was pushing back from gate 32 at approximately 7:45am. That is not to say the landing and arrival times she provided in EST are in any way better, even if we don't translate them into EDT. According to Howland, flight 198 from San Francisco landed at 6:50am and was at the gate probably by 7:00am. There is a host of other witnesses though who contradict her claim:
Michael J. Damon, a customer service and ramp manager for Sky Chefs who said that the plane arrived between 6:00am and 6:15am:
(Source: 14142115-t7-b11-FBI-302-knife-and-American-and-Flight-and-11-FDR-FBI-302s
And Wayne Kirk, a member of the cleaning crew who estimated the cleaning crew's arival at the plane to be around 6:10am:
(Source: 14094215-T7-B17-FBI-302s-of-interest-Flight-11)
When he wrote his article in, Woody Box also mentioned he had consulted BTS records and they agreed with what the other witnesses were saying, not with Howland's account. I checked the BTS records myself, but unfortunately aside from the Scheduled Arrival Time of Flight 198 at 6:24am, there are no Actual Arrival Times for any flights for September 11.
I did something else though, to get an idea of what the Actual Arrival Time of AA198 usually was: I ckecked the history, and that coupled with the fact that none of the witnesses mentioned anything unusual with the arrival of the aircraft on September 11, e.g. a delay of more than 30 minutes as per Howland's claim, indicates that flight 198's arrival time must have been what it usually was.
Below is a table with AA198 Scheduled and Actual Arrival Times for the two weeks preceding 9/11:
In his article, Woody Box almost dismisses the issue of the nonsensical times in Howland's narrative and goes on to say that "...it doesn't discredit Howland's credibility". However the case is not that simple, and that is because pilots are VERY particular about their times. Time in aviation is not just a detail to be taken lightly. It requires the highest degree of accuracy, and plays a huge role in every stage and on every aspect of flight, from the filing of a flight plan, to reading weather information, the routing of aircraft or conducting onboard calculations. Pilots are used to juggling with more than one time simultaneously, so giving out an accurate and precise time when required is almost a given, even more so if we take into account the fact that they needn't even have to think about it, it should already be in their logbook!
A logbook is exactly what the name implies, a book where pilots log their flight time, together with various other bits of information pertaining to the flights themselves, such as departure and arrival time, origin and destination airport etc. A logbook is the first thing a prospective employer will request, pilots carry it with them at all times while on the job, and should be filled in the soonest possible after a flight, preferably even before leaving the aircraft.
And that is the reason why the following, from Howland's notes, is so peculiar:
In gate "probably" at 7:00am.
Probably??
Arrival time, also known in aviation as "on-block" time is "...the time when the aircraft has reached its parking position at the gate and the chocks are placed", and for that she needn't have looked further than her logbook...Didn't Howland have a logbook?
And then there are other things, like her certitude that when flight 198 arrived in Boston it parked at gate 33, when in fact it parked at gate 32. Or that when she allegedly talked to Atta he was wearing a white pilot-type shirt, when, if the Portland stills are anything to go by, he was wearing a blue one...Or the over-the-top, literary rendition of her memories from that day which she later handed over to the FBI. Who knows, maybe Howland had a penchant for writing novels, complete with the lively imagination that that would require. The only thing Howland seems to have gotten right is the pilot bag Atta was seen carrying when he was captured on CCTV at Portland airport. She could have easily picked that up from the footage itself though as the stills became publicly available on September 19th, 2001...
And speaking of Atta...What is the main reason why Howland's testimony is so problematic? Why, because while flight 198 was arriving in Boston, Colgan Air 5930 with Mohamed Atta on board was departing Portland, Maine not arriving at Logan before 6:45. Add to that the additional time he would have needed to make his way from the arrival gate to a different part of the terminal where flight 11 would be departing from, and the Howland-Atta encounter is an impossibility.
To sum up: I 'm not saying Lynn Howland didn't exist. I 'm not saying she was made up. I 'm not saying she didn't fly AA 198 into Boston and I 'm not saying she lied or that her intentions were to deceive.
All I 'm saying is that Lynn Marie Florence Howland's testimony makes absolutely no sense.
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