Sixty families of September 11 victims are making their first forays into court to see if they can hold responsible the airlines which owned the aircraft that hit the World Trade Centre.

The crews on the American Airlines and United Airlines jets didn’t prevent the hijackers reaching the flight decks, lawyers for the families told a US District Court in New York.

The families are also suing the airline security companies, the airplanes’ manufacturer Boeing, and the owner and leaseholder of the World Trade Centre.

Judge Alvin Hellerstein has been given the job of deciding whetrher the claims can proceed, or whether they should be – as the defendants insist – thrown out. Their lawyers allege the events were unforeseeable, and that the airlines followed all the security laws in place at the time.

A decision is expected later this week.