Ari Fleischer, Box Cutters There is zero evidence of box-cutters on either plane that hit the World Trade Center. Not a single flight crew member or passenger on American Airlines Flight 11 or United Airlines Flight 175 reported seeing box-cutters or plastics knives. Nor were they mentioned in the FAA executive summary on any of the hijacked plane.(LINK FAA MEMO.) Only on American Airlines Flight 77, which hit the Pentagon, was there a near-mention by one passenger that the hijackers in the back of the plane had knives and "card-board cutters," and even that passenger to claim to see what weapons were actually used to hijack the plane. The claim by administration officials that plastic knives were used to hijack the planes is pure invention. (See Fictoid #9)

Since unlike guns, metal knives and bombs, it was legal for airline passengers on September 11th 2001 to carry aboard box-cutters and plastic knives, the claim that they used such devices to commandeer the planes that destroyed the World Trade Center is a functional fictoid. Not only does it serve to shield the airlines, airports and airport screeners from massive liability from the victims at the World Trade Center, it protects the Bush Administration by diverting attention away from concern that airport security at three Federally-supervised airports was dangerously lax.