Air traffic controller Danielle O'Brien was at the Dulles Tower outside Washington, D.C., that morning. Mohamed Atta Flight Record. In late 1999, Atta, Shehhi, Jarrah, Bahaji, and bin al-Shibh decided to travel to Chechnya to fight against the Russians, but were convinced by Khalid al-Masri and Mohamedou Ould Salahi at the last minute to change their plans. He led the team of hijackers who took control of American Airlines flight 11 and flew it into the north tower of New York City's World Trade Center. Mr. Pursell, meanwhile, said the two men never explained why they chose to fly to Miami or apologized for the costs incurred by the school. Published Nov 7, 2001. Atta phoned his graduate advisor, Machule, and mentioned family problems at home, saying, "Please understand, I don't want to talk about this. USDA loan officer Johnelle Bryant said Atta visited her office and inquired about a loan to buy a plane. Atta returned to Hamburg in February 2000, and began inquiring about flight training in the United States. "[113] In turn, political scientist Robert Pape has claimed that Atta was motivated by his commitment to the political cause, that he was psychologically normal, and that he was "not readily characterized as depressed, not unable to enjoy life, not detached from friends and society. The Mohamed Atta Files. United States and Czech intelligence officials have since concluded that the person seen with Ani was mistakenly identified as Atta, and the consensus of investigators is that Atta never attended a meeting in Prague. Atta flew to Spain on January 4, 2001, to coordinate with bin al-Shibh and returned to the United States on January 10. Miami International is controlled, that is, the tower controls the movement of all airplanes on the airfield. [72] After the stopover in Zrich, he arrived in Madrid at 4:45pm on Swissair Flight 656, and spent several hours at the airport. Drumhiller said it could have been "to make the final arrangements, to sort of close out everything they were doing to wrap up their time in the states.". On April 16, Atta was given a citation for not having a valid driver's license, and he began steps to get the license. A well-connected Saudi family hosted visits from 9/11 terrorists at their Sarasota, Fla., home, including Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi, who were the hijackers in the cockpit of the plane which . before the crash, the . Lip readers have failed to decipher it. (L to R, top to bottom) Ahmed Alnami, Ahmed Ibrahim A. al-Haznawi, Ziad Samir al-Jarrah, and Saeed Alghamdi. This photo taken 12 September 2001 shows the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93 in Shanksville, PA. Why was Ziad Jarrah's plane the only one that failed to hit its target? "[114] By contrast, criminal justice professor, Adam Lankford, has found evidence that indicated Atta was suicidal, and that his struggles with social isolation, depression, guilt, shame, hopelessness, and rage were extraordinarily similar to the struggles of those who commit conventional suicide and murder-suicide. On July 7, 2001, Atta flew on Swissair Flight 117 from Miami to Zrich, where he had a stopover. [80] [81], On September 10, 2001, Atta picked up al-Omari from the Milner Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts, and the two drove their rented Nissan Altima to a Comfort Inn in South Portland, Maine. By the end of July, both Atta and Shehhi did solo flights. At 2:12 p.m. on August 25, Mohammed Atta logged into his . This piece of information was passed on to the FBI as "unevaluated raw intelligence". Atta's professor, Dittmar Machule, brought him along on an archaeological expedition to Aleppo in 1994. Atta took control of the plane and crashed it into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46a.m.[6] The crash led to the collapse of the skyscraper and the deaths of more than 1,600 people. We will high-jack airliners and crash them into specific targets. A spokesman for the F.A.A. While in South Portland, they were seen making two ATM withdrawals and stopping at Wal-Mart. He assumed that they had already radioed the tower so he advised them to go to the offices of Signature, the private general aviation operator at the airport. Readers may recall the shaving custom from the media coverage of 9/11. Some, like the 9/11 plot's ringleader, Mohamed Atta, flew in from Florida, checking into the King's Inn Motel in Wayne for a few days and then leaving and then returning days later. On May 2, Atta received his driver's license in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida. After six months, they asked him to leave.[20][21][22]. [3] Immediately after returning to Germany, Atta, al-Shehhi, and Jarrah reported their passports stolen, possibly to discard travel visas to Afghanistan. WASHINGTON - The tape of Betty Ong's voice yesterday, alive and urgent yet amazingly calm, describing through the background buzz how a group of hijackers had stabbed two . He was among the highest-scoring students; by his senior year, he was admitted to an exclusive architecture program. "It is possible that he calculated that security would be less stringent in Portland, Maine, than it would be in Boston, said terrorism expert Steve Emerson. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. The men who planned and carried out the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings staked out the White House before deciding that their targets should be the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and the U.S . Atta was believed to have used a payphone at the airport to phone a number "linked to al-Qaeda" after Qahtani was denied entry.[78]. On 12 April 1986, Mahmoud Mahmoud Atta . Officials at Signature did not respond to several telephone requests to find out whether anyone at the company remembered Mr. Atta or Mr. Shehhi. In the end though, those international calls and Emails open a window to the falsehood of greater authority to intercept communications. A separate section of the video shows Osama bin Laden addressing his followers at a complex near Kandahar. Flesh or bone from 13 of the 19 Al Qaeda terrorists who flew passenger jets into . "This begs the question of why the pilots had not punched in the hijack code of 7500, also known as Squawking, if things were happening on the plane before the hijackers gained entry to the . Bryant said "the picture that came out in the newspaper, that's exactly what that man looked like. Said Bahaji, a German citizen, was a close friend of Mohammed Atta, the hijacker in control of American Airlines Flight 11 which was the first plane to strike the World Trade Center. [33], After coming to Hamburg in 1992, Atta grew more religiously fanatical and frequented the mosque with greater regularity. Atta said, he was to crash the plane. Once Atta's commuter flight landed in Boston, phone records show he took a call from another 9/11 hijacker, Marwan Al-Shehi. Kersten said in an interview at the agency's headquarters in Wiesbaden that Atta was in Afghanistan from late 1999 until early 2000,[53][54] and that there was evidence that Atta met with Osama bin Laden there. Shave excess hair from the body and wear cologne. [66][67], Atta began flight training on July 6, 2000, and continued training nearly every day. This was the last transmission heard from Flight 11. [71] On July 8, Atta was recorded on surveillance video when he withdrew 1700 Swiss francs from an ATM. [3] After they arrived, they were selected by Al Qaeda leader Mohammed Atef as suitable candidates for the "planes operation" plot. Practicing for his assignment, Ziad Jarrah took a check ride at Airborne Systems Flight School in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, on August 17. The crash and fire kill 59 on the plane and 125 on the . And we came up empty.". "[111], In 2021, on the 20th anniversary of the attacks, Atta's mother was interviewed by a Spanish newspaper. Had Atta or any of these men been on international watchlists, their names would have been flagged upon making a domestic reservation. In the first attack at 8.46am, American Airlines Flight 11, travelling from Boston to Los Angeles and piloted by plot leader Mohamed Atta, smashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre in . ''I told them to forget it. Plane Crash. [39], On August 1, 1995, Atta returned to Egypt for three months of study. After Jarrah's team hijacked Flight 93, flight attendants and passengers started making phone calls from the back of the plane. [11] Atta was the only son; he had two older sisters who are both well-educated and successful in their careers one as a medical doctor and the other as a professor. [65], According to official reports, Atta flew from Prague to Newark International Airport, arriving on June 3, 2000. [12], When Atta was ten, his family moved to the Cairo neighborhood of Abdeen, situated near the city center. In-laws characterized the father of Atta as "austere, strict, and private," and neighbors viewed the family as reclusive. On August 26, Saudi brothers Waleed and Wail al-Shehri also purchased tickets for the same flight. . Bin al-Shibh passed along bin Laden's list of targets; bin Laden wanted the United States Capitol, the Pentagon, and the World Trade Center to be attacked, as they were deemed "symbols of America." The couple explained at dinner that they ran an exchange program and invited Atta to continue his studies in Germany; they also offered him room and board at their home in the city. Atta did not take the return flight. The third hijacked plane, American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 that took off from Dulles Airport . Usually in these types of things you have your initial plan and you have a fallback plan. The 9/11 Commission Report speculated that the now-convicted terrorist conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was being trained as a possible replacement for Jarrah. [97] After 9/11, there also were reports stating that Mohamed Atta had attended International Officers School at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama. Mohamed Atta is shown in this photo released Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2001, in a State of Florida Division of Motor Vehicles photograph. Jarrah had arrived in the United States on June 27, 2000, after his flight landed at Newark, New Jersey, and Jarrah had decided to go with Shehhi and Atta to search for different flight schools in the US. "They conformed to all the guidelines of checking in." The only problem, Tuohey said, came when he told Atta that, after arriving in Boston, Atta and Omari would have to check in once again before transferring to American Airlines Flight 11. [10] His father, Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta, was a lawyer, educated in both sharia and civil law. Atta and Jarrah appear in high spirits, laughing and smiling in front of the camera. On Sept. 12, 2001, investigators combed over the field near Shanksville, Pa., where United Flight 93 crashed a day earlier. identifies as one of the 19 hijackers, taxied a small private plane toward a runway when, unexpectedly, it stalled. It is only Jarrah's connection to Bin al-Shibh and others that would have connected him to any plot, including his attendance at the al Quds mosque in Hamburg. [86][89] The plane's transponder was switched off at 8:21a.m. At 8:24:38a.m., a voice believed to be Atta's was heard by air traffic controllers, saying: "We have some planes. They were all well-educated, had experience of living in western society, along with some English skills, and would be able to obtain visas. [73][74] After bin al-Shibh returned to Germany on July 16, 2001, Atta had three more days in Spain. . Wail's ticket was purchased over the phone with a debit card. Several clues have been found to link their stay in Spain to Syrian-born Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas (Abu Dahdah), and Amer el Azizi, a Moroccan in Spain. According to Bryant, Atta wanted to finance the purchase of a crop-duster. [7] In Germany, he registered his name as "Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta", and went by the name Mohamed el-Amir at the Hamburg University of Technology. Wail al Shehri (28), Saudi Arabia - Elementary school teacher (brother of Waleed) Waleed al Shehri (22), Saudi Arabia - Student. [16] Atta and Shehhi established accounts at SunTrust Bank and received wire transfers from Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's nephew in the United Arab Emirates. The same day, he booked a one-way first-class ticket via the Internet on America West Flight 244 from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport to Las Vegas. [19] In 1992, his father had overheard a German couple who were visiting Egypt's capital. There are two separate concourses in Terminal B; the south concourse is mainly used by US Airways and the north one is mostly used by American Airlines. The two al-Shehri brothers selected seats 2A and 2B in first class. [12] Atta initially lived with two high school teachers; however, they eventually found his closed-mindedness and introverted personality to be too much for them. - United Airlines Flight 175 (traveling from Boston to Los Angeles) strikes the South Tower of the World Trade Center . Following the real Mohamad Atta and his crash into the World Trade Center, his ghost, like ashes left at Ground Zero, has arisen and entered the public consciousness again. [9][44] This was the same day that Israel, much to the outrage of Atta, attacked Lebanon in Operation Grapes of Wrath; signing the will "offering his life" was his response. [38] The instructions in his last will and testament reflect both Sunni funeral practices along with some more puritanical demands from Salafism, including asking people not "to weep and cry" and to generally refrain from showing emotion. At 8:26 a.m., Flight 11 makes . Political psychologist Jerrold Post has suggested that Atta and his fellow hijackers were just following orders from al-Qaeda leadership, "and whatever their destructive, charismatic leader Osama bin Laden said was the right thing to do for the sake of the cause was what they would do. Footage shows the five hijackers who flew American Flight 77 into the Pentagon progressing through security checks at Washington's Dulles International Airport. Throughout the summer, Atta met with Nawaf al-Hazmi to discuss the status of the operation on a monthly basis. Although the marriage never happened, Atta's father mentioned they liked each other.[18]. Mr. Pursell, meanwhile, had already gotten a cellphone call from Mr. Atta and Mr. Shehhi. Records on Atta's cellphone indicated that he phoned the Moroccan embassy in Washington on January 2, just before Shehhi flew to the country. The timing of the Afghanistan training was outlined on August 23, 2002, by a senior investigator. This encounter took place "around the third week of April to the third week of May of 2000", before Atta's official entry date into the United States (see below). Even for those who couldn't believe what they were seeing, that signaled a terrorist plot, with the possibility of more attacks to follow. And that may have been what he was doing. [43], On April 11, 1996, Atta signed his last will and testament at the mosque, officially declaring his Muslim beliefs and giving 18 instructions regarding his burial. Protection against purely domestic hijackers primarily was lodged with check-in personnel at the airport counter, then with security screeners, and finally with attendants at the gate. After he graduated in 1990 with an architecture degree,[15] he joined the Engineers Syndicate, an organization under the control of the Muslim Brotherhood. On September 11 we'll live tweet the events of the day, minute by minute, starting at 4:45 a.m. EST, @RoadTo911. [103] Shaffer largely based his allegations on the recollections of Navy Captain, Scott Phillpott,[104] who later recanted his recollection, telling investigators that he was "convinced that Atta was not on the chart that we had." Some, like the 9/11 plot's ringleader, Mohamed Atta, flew in from Florida, checking into a motel in Wayne for a few days and then leaving and then returning days . He was let go from the firm in 1997, however, because its business had declined and "his draughtsmanship was not needed" after it bought a CAD system. The luggage included a copy of Atta's will, written in Arabic, as well as a list of instructions, called "The Last Night". Tuohey was the ticket agent at the Portland International Jetport who handed two of the terrorists - Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz al-Omari - their boarding passes for an early morning flight to . During his time in the United States, Jarrah left five times to visit his wife in Germany and he constantly communicated with her, both over the phone and in email. ''A guy said, 'Hey, some of your pilots are down here and they left the plane on the causeway,' '' Mr. Kraus recalled. The remains of the 9/11 killers are now held in deep freeze. And so, we still don't know what he was doing there.". Atta and Shehhi then moved into a small house nearby in Nokomis where they stayed for six months. There hasn't been a successful attack against commercial aviation in the U.S. in the 20 years since 9/11, and outside experts agree that while there is still room for improvement, the TSA has been . [13][14] In 1985, Atta enrolled at Cairo University and focused his studies on engineering. This included the construction of high-rise buildings in Cairo and other ancient cities in the region. FBI investigators have officially concluded that 11 of the 19 terrorists who hijacked the aircraft on 11 September did not know they were on a suicide mission, Whitehall . Dale Kraus, then the general manager at Huffman, recalled a telephone call that came within minutes of the incident in Miami from an irritated official in the flight tower. Jarrah, a Lebanese citizen, would go on to pilot United Airlines Flight 93, intended to hit the U.S. Capitol Building. Atta, who piloted the first plane into the world trade center, flew to Las Vegas on June 28, rented a car, then spent . A Pakistani businessman named Mohammed Atta had come to Prague from Saudi Arabia on May 31, 2000, with this second Atta possibly contributing to the confusion. He had vacationed often as a child (and would continue to take vacations with his wife while he was in the United States) and was the best English speaker and student of the four. Thirty minutes later, Marwan al-Shehhi hit the South Tower. It was Atta who took control of the first hijacked aircraft, American Airlines Flight 11, and told passengers, "Nobody move, everything will be OK. 2) Make sure you know all aspects of the plan well, and expect the . He asked about the Pentagon and the White House. The family had few relatives on the father's side and kept their distance from Bouthayna's family. ''Any time the tower calls, they are not in the best of moods.''. [26] While in Syria, he met Amal, a young Palestinian woman who worked for a planning bureau in the city. The incident, which occurred on a busy travel day at the country's ninth-busiest passenger airport, is especially notable because of how close it brought the two men to official scrutiny. Anyone can read what you share. Atta and Amal appeared to be attracted to each other, but Atta soon decided that "she had a quite different orientation and that the emancipation of the young lady did not fit." We would like to start training for the career of airline professional pilots. Waleed purchased his ticket online with his debit card. The two had arrived in the United States from Saudi Arabia in April 2001 and joined Atta's team. Hardball takes a look at the top mysteries surrounding the deadliest terror attack on American soil starting with the activities al-Qaida ring leader Mohammed Atta on the evening of Sept. 10, 2001. Bin al-Shibh was worried that Jarrah might even abandon the plan. that best enable air traffic controllers to follow a plane's path. . The hour-long tape places him in Afghanistan at a decisive moment in the development of the conspiracy when he was given operational command. By the time it took off, Mohammed Atta was just four minutes away from hitting the North Tower of the World Trade Center. [73][74] He drove east out of Madrid towards the Mediterranean beach area of Tarragona. [45], After leaving Plankontor in the summer of 1997, Atta disappeared again and did not return until 1998. On the morning of September 11, 2001, 46 minutes into United Airlines Flight 93, a nonstop flight from Newark, New Jersey to San Francisco, four hijackers took control of the Boeing 757-222. Atta, an Egyptian, and Omari, a Saudi, held $2,400 first-class tickets to fly from Portland to Boston to Los Angeles. "Might have just been doing surveillance detection just to see if somebody might have been following him up in that area, Drumhiller said. With its passengers defiant, the plane crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. [16] When Atta and Shehhi arrived in Florida, they initially stayed with Huffman's bookkeeper and his wife in a spare room of their house. We are going back to the airport. Skies, Plot Leader Met bin Laden", "Video of 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta posted by British news site", "FBI Informant Says Agents Missed Chance to Stop 9/11 Ringleader Mohammed Atta", "Flight Path Study American Airlines Flight 11", "Personal Stories Who Were They? But Atta's night before 9-11 which he spent in Portland, Main -- is a mystery that has puzzled terrorism experts for five years. The investigator, Klaus Ulrich Kersten was the director of Germany's federal anticrime agency, the Bundeskriminalamt. This document is divided into three sections; the first is a fifteen point list providing detailed instructions for the last night of a martyr's life, the second gives instructions for travelling to the plane and the third from the time between boarding the plane and martyrdom. Photocopy of Jarrah's passport, made by Rina Bernard when she rented out one of her apartments at 1816 Harding St. Jarrah was on board United Airlines flight 93 when it crashed in Pennsylvania. Atta graduated from Cairo University with marks insufficient for the graduate program. "These guys looked like they might have been on business travel," Tuohey said. The FBI found a 9/11 hijacker's airplane ticket floating to the ground only moments after the north tower collapsed. On April 11, Atta and Shehhi rented an apartment at 10001 Atlantic Blvd, Apt.