How many passengers of flight 11 and 175 have been identified positively?

[John Doe II]

As there are ongoing discussions about the identification of the victims of the WTC I was wondering if anybody has information about how many passengers have been identified positively (based on matching DNA or analysing teeth etc).
Thanks a lot in advance.

[Old and In the Way]

1. A follow-up interview with all the passengers' families of the 4 planes

involved with 9/11 would be interesting. What do they think and know about the circumstances of these crashes? Heck, I'd settle for an independent verification that victims had families that acknowledged their deaths.

[spooked911]

3. Yes, I agree completely.

[Bolo Boffin]

6. You don't honestly suspect...

...that the passengers didn't exist?

[spooked911]

2. I remember reading an article that some of the people they identified

by DNA from the WTC were plane passengers, now that you mention it. But I don't think I could find it again.

[Make7]

4. www.google.com

New York Daily News
"The 1,401 people identified include 45 of those aboard the hijacked planes - 33 from Flight 11, which struck the north tower, and 12 from Flight 175, which hit the south tower." - Sept. 11, 2002

CNN
"Of the 2,749 people known to have been killed at the World Trade Center site, only 1,585 -- or 58 percent -- were identified on the basis of recovered physical remains.

The death toll does not include the 10 hijackers who crashed passenger jets into the twin towers. Two of their remains were identified." - Feb. 23, 2005

[DulceDecorum]

5. Four of the "hijackers"

were issued death certificates.
I only wish I knew more about that.

[John Doe II]

7. Thanks

Strange is for AA 77 and UA 93 I've found tonnes of articles about the identification of the victims yet for the WTC we (even with the Newsday article) still don't know the final number of identified passengers. No follow up articles? No official numbers contrary to AA 77 and UA 93?

[Make7]

8. Maybe there haven't been updates because....

that's all they have been able to identify. It looks like the vast majority of all identifications were done within the first year - perhaps none of those identified since then were passengers on the planes.

I agree that it would be nice to see more recent articles with some up to date numbers, but if there is no new information pertaining to the passengers, they don't have much of a reason to follow up on it.

-Make7

[spooked911]

9. I wonder how many of the plane passengers were ID'ed by

DNA vs teeth versus fingerprints versus photos versus X-rays.

If they were only ID'ed by DNA, I tend to doubt that they had good known DNA samples from each victim that they could match to the DNA from the WTC remains. That is, they needed good starting samples for each person that a relative had to have brought in, and I'm fairly doubtful they could have had good samples for each person that they could use to match.

Of course the whole job of IDing remains is incredibly demanding and gruesome and I am not necessarily doubting the integrity of the coroner or anything. You just have to wonder how accurately they could keep track of the ten thousand samples they had. It must have been an overwhelming job.

Certainly, if we could absolutely say that passengers from the planes were found in the WTC, we can put to bed any 9/11 model where remote control drones were used (as I have speculated myself from time to time).

[Make7]

10. Why wouldn't they have good known DNA samples?

Did the passengers not brush their teeth or shave? Did none of them have living relatives?

How many good known DNA samples would be enough? If there is a positive match to DNA found at the WTC site then I think it can be assumed that they had a good known DNA sample to compare it to. I also think that given the physics of the crash, most (if not all) of the passengers on the planes would probably only be able to be identified by DNA.

How many positive ID's from passengers would be enough to reasonably conclude that those flights did indeed hit the Twin Towers?

-Make7

[spooked911]

11. Have you ever isolated DNA from a toothbrush or shaving razor?

Of course it is possible to do it, but 1) the logistics are formidable when there are thousands of people who would have to bring in samples deceased relatives and 2) even if everyone brought in toothbrushes or razors, you have to wonder how good quality DNA they can get. I'm sure they can get some-- but enough quality DNA to do a complete match seems unlikely. I work with DNA and do PCR as part of my job; I have to wonder how good their samples were. Plus, I wonder how many relatives actually did bring in items for DNA extraction. Was the number of samples they ID'ed by DNA limited by how many known samples they had?

[Make7]

12. No, I haven't.

I guess I'm just assuming that if they made a positive match they are confident that they had samples of sufficient quality to make that possible. I don't have any experience with, and very little knowledge of DNA - that's why I'm not exactly sure what your reservations are concerning this.

What would be the odds of 33 false positives from the passengers of Flight 11? And 12 from Flight 175?

-Make7