Flashback: How James Woods Encountered, Then Reported Multiple 9/11 Hijackers to the FBI

Exactly 25 years ago today, nearly 3,000 innocent people died in the most horrific terror attacks in modern history. Had red flags been seen, those lives may have been saved.

One of those red flags, it turns out, reportedly came from none other than actor James Woods.

In a story he relayed to Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly in 2002, Woods said he initially encountered the men on a flight from Boston to Los Angeles.

He wouldn’t say what behavior initially alerted him. However, ABC News said shortly after the attacks that Woods told the FBI “that he was alone in first class with the four men and noticed during the entire cross-country flight that none of them had anything to eat or drink, nor did they read, sleep, or appear to make themselves comfortable.”

“They sat erect in their seats and stared straight ahead, saying nothing to flight attendants and speaking to each other only in inaudible tones,” the outlet continued.

This behavior, Woods told O’Reilly, had him asking the flight attendant if he could speak with the pilot of the jet, and the first officer came out.

“I reported to him that I felt that the four men — and I said, ‘Can you look over my shoulder and see who I’m talking about?’ and he said, ‘Yeah’ — I said I think they’re going to hijack this plane,” Woods said.

“I mean, everything they’re doing, and I explained to him these details, which I’ve been asked to keep private until whatever jurisdiction, you know, whatever trials may take place. Their behavior was such that I felt that they were going to hijack the plane.”

When he arrived home, he was asked by his girlfriend at the time how the flight was.

“Well, aside from the terrorists and the turbulence, it was fine,” he said he responded. “Which was now in retrospect not such a very funny joke, but it was Aug. 1 and nobody was thinking along those lines.”

After 9/11 happened, one of his friends told him to call the FBI. The individual he talked to was “a very intelligent young man” who said that due to the volume of tips and the possibility he might have to testify at a trial, “you won’t hear from us” about it.

That changed the next morning.

“Quarter to 7:00 the next morning, I get a phone call that actually wakes me up. And they said, ‘We want to talk to you about the flight that you took in August,’” Woods said. “I said, well, look, I’ll get ready and I’ll come down to the federal building. He said, ‘That’s OK, we’re outside your house. We’ll just wait for you here.’”

That was definitely indicative of the seriousness, although the FBI didn’t tell him initially whether the passengers matched the names on the manifest in direct terms.

However, one made it pretty clear they had a good idea: “Well, we’ve had 36,000 tips in one day. And there’s two of us and we’re going to be at your house all this morning. So you can do the math, but we can’t tell you,” he told Woods.

Woods told O’Reilly that in the interim, “I have identified for sure two of them as two of the terrorists who actually were not on Flight 11, but one was on Flight 175 and one was on Flight 77. And I’ve been told unofficially, not by the FBI, but by someone else in a higher level of government, believe it or not, just through a coincidence, through a mutual friend, that all four of them were terrorists involved.”

American Airlines Flight 11 was one of the two flights that originated from Boston that were involved in the attacks, along with United Flight 175.

Did you know?

James Woods observed and reported four suspicious men making a dry run on an airline flight before the 9/11 attacks.#NeverForgetpic.twitter.com/laQwpTzznV

— Wojciech Pawelczyk (@WojPawelczyk) September 11, 2024

A week after the attacks, ABC News reported that the flight Woods was on “now appears to have been a dry run” for the hijackings. While he did not report it to the FBI, Woods said, the flight crew reported the incident to the Federal Aviation Administration.

The FBI has never publicly acknowledged whether or not the flight was indeed a dry run, Newsweek reported. However, Woods has continued to post about it on the anniversary of the attacks, two years ago getting millions of views on X for a reminder.

“Twenty-three years ago today I picked up the phone, and with no little trepidation, called the FBI to report a flight I had taken with some suspicious fellow passengers,” he wrote. “The response I got was thoroughly professional and so impressive, and the beginning of a decade-long saga.”

And, with the 25th anniversary of that horrible day approaching, others are thanking the actor for taking the initiative to alert the crew and the FBI after the attacks.

“God bless you James and thank you for trying to stop the horror of that day by reporting the dry run,” Megyn Kelly wrote Thursday evening. “You’re a hero.”

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