Were two of the airplanes involved in the 9/11 terrorist attack listed as "valid" instead of "destroyed" in FAA records? No, that's not true: The planes involved in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack that bore tail numbers N591UA and N612UA were listed as destroyed in FAA records reviewed by Lead Stories. What explains the re-appearance of the tail numbers is that N-numbers are not permanently assigned to a particular aircraft and can be re-used on other planes, according to the FAA.
The claim appeared in a video and post (archived here) published on Facebook on August 7, 2012. It opened:
What about the 9/11 planes
Truths are happening!
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Mon Aug 12 18:07:48 2024 UTC)
The planes' attributed N-numbers, also called tail numbers (N591UA and N612UA) are listed as "destroyed" in the FAA's aircraft accident database on September 11, 2001, the opposite of what the Facebook post claims.
The FAA's aircraft accident database shows that aircrafts attributed with tail numbers N591UA and N612UA were destroyed on September 11, 2001, at entries 615 and 617. "DEST" highlighted, stands for destroyed:
(Source: FAA aircraft accident database screenshot taken on Mon Aug 12 21:48:06 2024 UTC)
The claim relies upon the anecdote that United Airlines pilot David Friedman spotted tail number N591UA on April 10th, 2003 at Chicago's Ohare airport on flight 1111 on a United Airlines Boeing 757, the same airplane model as the one destroyed in the 9/11 attack. However, this only shows that United Airlines reattributed its N-numbers to another aircraft, not that its planes hijacked on 9/11 weren't destroyed.
The FAA website's aircraft registration page explains in the "Aircraft N-Number Change" section that tail numbers already held by an owner can be reattributed.
Re-appearance of those numbers does not prove the aircraft involved in the 9/11 attacks weren't destroyed when they were used as weapons by terrorists. United Airlines still held the N-numbers N591UA and N612UA until 2005. It therefore would not be abnormal for a United Airlines employee to spot N-number N591UA on a different aircraft of the same model Boeing 757 in 2003, as the post claims.
Moreover, the FAA stated in an email to Lead Stories that:
United Airlines cancelled N-numbers N591UA and N612UA in 2005. Other entities reserved N591UA and N612UA in 2016 and 2022, respectively. An N-number can be applied to a different aircraft once it is cancelled.
As it happens, it is entirely possible to have come across the same tail numbers that were attributed to the airplanes involved in the 9/11 attacks, or to come across these same tail numbers in the future.
The numbers being subsequently attributed to other aircrafts and being listed as "valid" in FAA records do not mean that the planes involved in the 9/11 attack weren't destroyed, or that the terrorist attack was a hoax, as multiple widely debunked conspiracy theories suggest, and as the post presenting the claim implies.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about the 9/11 terrorist attack can be found here.
