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. They board a commuter flight to Boston Logan International Airport, they then board American Airlines Flight 11.. 7:59 AM - Flight 11 takes off from Boston, headed for Los Angeles, California. 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. 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. It's hard to tell.". TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Each day a new story will be published here. identifies as one of the 19 hijackers, taxied a small private plane toward a runway when, unexpectedly, it stalled. Atta and Shehhi then moved into a small house nearby in Nokomis where they stayed for six months. Mr. Pursell, meanwhile, had already gotten a cellphone call from Mr. Atta and Mr. Shehhi. During his trip to Las Vegas, he is thought to have used a video camera that he had rented from a Select Photo outlet back in Delray Beach, Florida. . So why did UA Flight 93 prove to be the only plane that failed to reach its intended target, retaken by its passengers and forced to crash? For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. The next day, he received a five-year B-1/B-2 (tourist/business) visa from the United States embassy in Berlin. [91] The angle at which Atta crashed into the North Tower severed all means of escape from Floor 92 or higher, ensuring that no one on those floors was able to make it out alive before the building collapsed 102 minutes later at 10:28 A.M.[92], Because the flight from Portland to Boston had been delayed,[93] his bags did not make it onto Flight 11. [34] His friends in Germany described him as an intelligent man in whom religious convictions and political motives held equal sway. [66][67], Atta began flight training on July 6, 2000, and continued training nearly every day. Former Maine airline ticket agent recalls encounter with 9/11 - WMTW Atta was seated in business class, in seat 8D. We went through the logs of ferries leaving Maine, and we went through the logs of airlines and anything associated with potential for a terrorist cell to support Atta. He mentioned Osama bin Laden and said "this man would someday be known as the world's greatest leader." It had been overlooked that there would still be a security screen to pass in Boston because of this distinct detail of the terminal's arrangement. [64] Law-enforcement officials said Bryant passed a lie-detector exam. Report Suggest Cover-Up of 9/11 Findings", "Father Denies 'Gentle Son' Could Hijack Any Jetliner", "Father insists alleged leader of attack on WTC is still alive", "He Never Even Had a Kite" Mohamed Atta's father talks about his son, the alleged hijacker, " 11 ", New video shows 9/11 hijackers Mohammed Atta, Ziad Jarrah at Al-Qaida meeting., Interviews with those who interacted with Atta prior to 9/11, October 2001 interview with Dittmar Machule, "MUGSHOTS: Mohammed Atta - Soldier of Terror", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mohamed_Atta&oldid=1140797922, Four Corners, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, broadcast November 12, 2001, Documentary series from Court TV (now TruTV), This page was last edited on 21 February 2023, at 21:12. 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 . In Maine, an unanswered question remains about the events on 9/11 This piece of information was passed on to the FBI as "unevaluated raw intelligence". Agents of terror leave their mark on Sin City / Las Vegas workers Realizing they were facing a suicide mission, flight 93 passengers fought for control of the plane. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane.". 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. Atta graduated from Cairo University with marks insufficient for the graduate program. September 11 attacks: How 9/11 unfolded | ITV News [75] Yosri Fouda, who interviewed bin al-Shibh and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) before the arrest, believes that Said Bahaji and KSM may have also been present at the meeting. Atta and Jarrah appear in high spirits, laughing and smiling in front of the camera. Ziad Jarrah should demonstrate that intelligence collection needs to be a holistic endeavor and is highly complicated. Iconic images from the September 11 attacks and their aftermath - France 24 He harbored anger and resentment toward the U.S. for its policy in Islamic nations of the Middle East, with nothing inflaming his ire more than the Oslo Accords and the Gulf War in particular. They instead traveled to Afghanistan over a two-week period in late November. They learned of a massive terrorist attack underway, concluding that they had to take action to down the plane: it was not being hijacked to land and for demands to be made. 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 . In August 2001, Atta traveled as a passenger on several "surveillance" flights, to establish in detail how the attacks could be carried out. He provided the first official confirmation that Atta and two other pilots had been in Afghanistan, and he also provided the first dates of the training. After six months, they asked him to leave.[20][21][22]. Ramzi bin al-Shibh is also identified in the video. Hijacker Mohamed Atta presses the wrong button when trying to communicate with passengers on Flight 11, reaching out instead to air traffic control and alerting controllers to the attacks. On May 2, Atta received his driver's license in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida. TSA Timeline: How Travel And Airport Security Changed After 9/11 - NPR.org [38] These beliefs were even stronger during Operation Infinite Reach, which he believed that Monica Lewinsky was a Jewish agent influencing Bill Clinton against aiding Palestine, which would later play a key role in creating the Hamburg Cell. Now, we are living in Germany since a while for study purposes. So, did Mohammed Atta go to Portland because of security issues? In mid-1998, Atta worked alongside Shehhi, bin al-Shibh, and Belfas, at a warehouse, packing computers in crates for shipping. They inquired about multi-engine planes and told the instructor that "they wanted to move quickly, because they had a job waiting in their country upon completion of their training in the U.S." In mid-October, Atta and Shehhi returned to Huffman Aviation to continue training. [3] After they arrived, they were selected by Al Qaeda leader Mohammed Atef as suitable candidates for the "planes operation" plot. On September 11 we'll live tweet the events of the day, minute by minute, starting at 4:45 a.m. EST, @RoadTo911. [100][101][102], In 2005, Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and Congressman Curt Weldon alleged that the Defense Department data mining project, Able Danger, produced a chart that identified Atta, along with Nawaf al-Hazmi, Khalid al-Mihdhar, and Marwan al-Shehhi, as members of a Brooklyn-based al-Qaeda cell in early 2000. While in the United States he traveled to Lawrenceville, Georgia, where he and Shehhi visited an LA Fitness Health Club. ''Whatever came of that, I don't know,'' said Dan Pursell, who was then the chief instructor at Huffman Aviation in Venice, Fla., the flight school where Mr. Atta and Mr. Shehhi earned their pilot's licenses and had rented the Piper Cherokee that day. [35][36] He was also angry and bitter at the elite in his native Egypt, who he believed hoarded power for themselves, as well as at the Egyptian government, that cracked down on the dissident Muslim Brotherhood. And that may have been what he was doing. 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. [31][32] Further, after the Egyptian government had imprisoned droves of political activists, he knew better than to trust it not to target him too, with his social and political beliefs being such as they were. [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. 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. 9/11: 4th plane was headed for the Capitol - UPI.com One of Atta's bags did not make it onto Flight 11, leaving . 9/11: Why did pilots fail to trigger basic hijack defence procedure? He spent two nights in Salou at the beachside Casablanca Playa Hotel, then spent the last two nights at the Hotel Residencia Montsant. 9/11 victim calmly describes hijack on haunting tape that best enable air traffic controllers to follow a plane's path. Jan 28, 2004 at 3:00 am. [94], On October 1, 2006, The Sunday Times released a video it had obtained "through a previously tested channel", purporting to show Mohamed Atta and Ziad Jarrah recording a martyrdom message six months earlier at a training camp in Afghanistan. After Atta's transmission, Boston Center concludes that Flight 11 has been hijacked and alerts other control centers. Original Plan for 9/11 Attacks Involved 10 Planes, Panel Says Although estimates range from 18 Jarrah was the first of the Hamburg group to enter the United States, settling in Venice, Florida, where he began flight training. Hanjour piloted the plane. His nascent infatuation with her, begrudgingly realised, was the closest thing Atta knew to romance. The day has now come for us to carry out our plan. This call was apparently to confirm that the attacks were ready to begin. On August 6, Atta and Shehhi rented a white, four-door 1995 Ford Escort from Warrick's Rent-A-Car, which was returned on August 13. DHS Hits the 20-Year Mark 8:24 am - Hijacker Mohammed Atta makes the first of two accidental transmissions from Flight 11 to ground control (apparently in an attempt to communicate with the plane's cabin). (L to R, top to bottom) Ahmed Alnami, Ahmed Ibrahim A. al-Haznawi, Ziad Samir al-Jarrah, and Saeed Alghamdi. [3] Immediately after returning to Germany, Atta, al-Shehhi, and Jarrah reported their passports stolen, possibly to discard travel visas to Afghanistan. Some say it was the makeup of Jarrah's team, that he had only three instead of four muscle men (because the 20th hijacker and his fourth was denied entry into the U.S.). I have been planning and working with Bin Laden on the destruction of certain American targets. Likewise, Shehhi traveled from a different location, in his case via Brussels. On July 26, Atta traveled via Continental Airlines to Newark, New Jersey, checked into the Kings Inn Hotel in Wayne, New Jersey, and stayed there until July 30 when he took a flight from Newark back to Fort Lauderdale. ''They were more concerned about being reimbursed for their rental car,'' he recalled. Atta sent 5060 similar e-mails to other flight training schools in the United States. [76], During the meetings in Spain, Atta and bin al-Shibh had coordinated the details of the attacks. [RR] Mohammed Atta's story There seem to be two primary reasons for his choosing that particular day: that it fell after Labor Day when most Americans (and the George W. Bush administration) would be back at work, maximizing the impact in terms of killing people; and that it was a Tuesday when air travel was easier and the planes less full (that is, fewer hostile passengers to deal with). In April, he was ticketed in South Florida for driving without a license. Other hijackers traveled to Las Vegas at different times in the summer of 2001. Ong provided information about lack of communication with the cockpit, lack of access to the cockpit, and passenger injuries. Officials at Signature did not respond to several telephone requests to find out whether anyone at the company remembered Mr. Atta or Mr. Shehhi. Lip readers have failed to decipher it. Atta had lived in Germany for approximately five years and also had a "strong record as a student". There, Atta and bin al-Shibh held a meeting to complete the planning of the attacks. Atta's professor, Dittmar Machule, brought him along on an archaeological expedition to Aleppo in 1994. He was therefore treated favorably and not scrutinized. About a minute later, he turned the plane southbound, on a course pointed in the direction of New York City. On July 25, Atta dropped Ziad Jarrah off at Miami International Airport for a flight back to Germany.