Film producer Robert Erickson, working on a documentary for the National Geographic Channel that focuses on the last 24 hours prior to the 9/11 attacks, has encountered roadblocks in trying to find interview subjects--specifically, those who reportedly encountered accused hijackers Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari in the Portland, Maine, area on the night and morning of September 10-11, 2001.

As reported in the Portland Press Herald on March 31:

Erickson said he’s also been unsuccessful in tracking down any of the passengers or the two pilots who flew with the terrorists from Portland to Boston on US Airways Flight 5930, a small commuter plane that carried about 10 passengers that morning.

....Similar roadblocks have stymied his efforts in Boston as well, he said.

Erickson said he has filed a request with the FBI through the federal Freedom of Information Act seeking the names of people who encountered the terrorists, such as the maid who cleaned their room at the Comfort Inn and the employees at Walmart, but has not received any response.

“The case is getting more mysterious,” Erickson said. “After 13 years, the FBI still has everyone scared into silence?”

Aaron Steps, a supervisory special agent in the FBI’s Portland office, said the agency never comments on third-party public records requests and that federal privacy laws prevent the agency from releasing the names of people who are witnesses or who have not been indicted.

The full article may be read here:

http://www.pressherald.com/news/Filmmaker_set_to_visit_Maine_puzzled_by_silence_of_those_who_saw_9_11_terrorists_up_close_...

It later goes on to quote author Terry McDermott, who tries to explain the situation by implying that those who encountered the accused hijackers simply had no awareness of having done so:

“They weren’t memorable people,” he said. “There is this notion that these guys were exceptional and larger than life. But they were very small in almost every way. You would walk past them in the street and not notice they were any different...."

(And this could be said of how many other crimes? And in those cases, does law enforcement still not try to track down those who may have encountered the suspects prior to the commission of the crime? And when those individuals, in the course of investigation, are subsequently made aware of who it was they had seen or had contact with, do they simply remind themselves about how 'unexceptional' they had appeared, and forget about it?)

The Press Herald article also quotes Erickson on the subject of why Atta and Alomari would have driven to Portland from Boston in the first place:

If their flight from Portland had been delayed by 10 minutes, he said, Atta and Alomari would have missed Flight 11. The entire operation would have failed.

“Why did you take that risk? It makes no sense,” he said.

For more discussion on that topic, see this David Ray Griffin article from 2008:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/9-11-contradictions-mohamed-atta-s-mitsubishi-and-his-luggage/8937